Letters

>Archive - PWW Print Edition Archive - 2001 Editions - Nov 17, 2001


 

Criticism during war

A conservative academic group founded by Lynne Cheney, the wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, has blasted 40 college professors as well as the president of Wesleyan University and others for not showing enough patriotism in the aftermath of Sept. 11. The answer to Lynn Cheney, et al is that they are not “America.”

America is nation and a people – not laissez-faire capitalism and Social Darwinism and certainly not the Reagan administration, which turned the CIA loose to arm the Afghan contras, gave $6 billion to those forces and indirectly produced both bin Laden’s network and the Taliban.

Criticism in wartime has been an American tradition, in reality, regardless of the war. during WWII, New Deal liberals vociferously condemned the U.S. government’s deal with French Fascist Admiral Darlan in North Africa; conservative Republican newspapers and politicians sought to blame the Roosevelt administration for Pearl Harbor and a congressional investigation was launched on the causes of Pearl Harbor during the attack.

In the Civil War, criticism of the Lincoln administration from both abolitionists on the left and Democrats on the right was widespread. Criticism of U.S. policy from anti-slavery forces in the Mexican war, and from conservatives and former Federalists in the war of 1812, was also widespread.

Such criticism is not only the foundation of democracy, but also an important check on governments, whose tendency to do reckless and stupid things in wartime is magnified.

Norman Markowitz
New Brunswick NJ


Independent press

I am very grateful for People’s Weekly World. The mainstream press has been co-opted by the U.S. government and network TV the same. Only PWW and Amy Goodman on National Public Radio are keeping me sane.

Nancy C. Childs
Las Vegas NV


Thanks for the rant

I read Terrie Albano’s Weekly Rant in the Oct. 20 PWW and appreciated what she had to say. Strangely, however, she was the first individual on the left to emphasize what all should be saying: that the secular society is the modern society and theocratic states are always inimical to socialist ideas.

Moreover, militant Islam has always been very anti-communist and has acted on its own or with the aid of the United States against leftist movements or governments many times. The Communist Party USA, indeed, should be boasting that it supported the Soviets in Afghanistan. Had the Soviet Union been successful there in the 1980s, that country today might be at least as stable as the nations of the former Soviet Central Asia.

The left seems to be facing a significant problem: it doesn’t want to support Bush, but it can’t define its position about militant Islam. And it seems to want to believe that the United States is somehow responsible for, or invited through its actions, the terrorist attacks. This is arguable for many reasons.

Dean Stewart
via email


Excellence

I’m deeply in love with this paper from day one until now. Keep up the excellent work because your paper is the best on the planet. No question about that.

Allan Canape
Ely NV


Livable world

The is encouraged by President Bush’s announcement that the U.S. strategic arsenal will be reduced to between 1,700 and 2,200 weapons. It is a good first step that has been a long time coming; it is critical to retire thousands of these unnecessary nuclear weapons.

However, the devil is in the details. There needs to be verification, counting rules and a procedure for dismantling the retired weapons. President Bush may be able to see into President Putin’s soul, but today’s verbal agreement can become tomorrow’s misunderstanding.

Moreover, the two presidents need to take further steps to safeguard nuclear weapons material in the former Soviet Union so that it does not fall into terrorists’ hands. Finally, we hope Presidents Bush and Putin decided to stand by the ABM Treaty. Now is not the time to walk away from this landmark agreement.

Luke Warren
Council for a Livable World via e-mail