Posted May 13, 2003

Example

The best way to enlighten others is by example. It is horrible to read about people like Robertson and Falwell condemning others because of their religious views. Their intolerance of others who do not think like them is very unchristian. ...

I have been a Christian my entire life, and it was mainly on Christian principles that I was against this war on Iraq. It is difficult to understand whether the likes of Robertson and Falwell are either stupid and truly believe what they spout, or if they are cunning and spout what benefits them. In any case, they have soured many decent people on Christianity. People like Mother Teresa lived their Christian lives every day. They shone like a bright star.

Of course, we are not all given to be such martyrs, but these people show us the goodness and tolerance of Christianity, not by lecturing but by example. What have Falwell and Robertson done for the injured and sick children of Iraq? Have they publicized their plight? Have they collected funds to help burned and maimed children? Have they sent doctors and nurses to Iraq?

I don't know much about Judaism or Islam, but I believe there are some very good people of those persuasions. People who try to help others and live good lives. Of course, they too, have their extremists and fundamentalists who consider others as worthless infidels. The radicals whether they be Christian, Jewish or Muslim misrepresent their faiths to the world.

~ A.O., USA

Regarding Charles Craske's letter posted May 10:

I've lived in India for a while, and you're right – there are plenty of well-meaning Americans out and about the world, as well as plenty of fast-buck artists. But nobody I met was there to kill people. That's why the "Support Our Troops" business is so underhanded. I refuse to be bullied into giving blanket "support" to a conquering army, some of whose personnel are folks who have found themselves in a spot they'd rather not be in, and others of whom are like the lowlifes who scrawled on the walls of that school or shot women only to quip, "the chick was in the way".

~ Stan Cox

Regarding "Smoking Gun" by Justin Raimondo:

Well Sen. Graham will get my vote if he starts the ball rolling on getting the truth about 09/11.

I have never suggested that 9/11 happened because the Bushies wanted it to. I suspect their pro-Israel cadre cooked up some wacko scheme to overthrow Saddam Hussein. I am sure I have read about the London-based anti-Hussein coalition wanting to stage a coup by landing commandos at Iraq's airports. Would not the CIA or our government be then training Arab men in flight schools to pilot large aircraft? Would certainly explain the ease in which these people entered our country, entered flight schools and planned what they were going to do completely unharassed, even when the FBI knew about some of them.

I have said all along it was some kind of scheme that got infiltrated by Al-Qaeda and that is why the Bushies are covering it up.

Love your site, and will support it financially. I am sending a check. ...

~ Joe Jannuzzi

If Bob Graham has some special information, then probably a number of other people know the same information and I don't hear others making the same boast. If we review all the events that led up to the 9-11 disaster, the story becomes a list of one bungle after another. As far as preventing this specific disaster, however, I believe we'll never be able to show negligence on the part of the White House because insufficient information existed to pinpoint date, time, and place. General warnings definitely existed, but nothing specific enough to act on. The White House has admitted they knew the generality. The FBI and CIA have admitted to failures in communications. The airlines have admitted to failures in passenger security. The immigration services have admitted to failures in client follow-up and tracking. The list of failures goes on and on. Did someone within our government or our allies know about 9/11 and just let it happen? I see no evidence of that. I doubt if we'll have a Daniel Ellsburg in this case.

~ Fred Rounds

As a regular reader, I am a bit perplexed as to why Justin Raimondo keeps ignoring solid evidence, that not only did Bush know about 9/11 before it happened, but that it was planned and carried out by elements of the CIA. ...

Stanley Hilton is a lawyer who is representing over 400 of the victims of 9/11’s families and he has been given almost no media attention.

He has taken sworn testimonies, from witnesses who claim that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others in the U.S. government were complicit in causing and also in aiding and abetting the 9/11 attacks, in order to promote their political agenda.

He details the evidence: marriage certificates, photographs – a woman who was married to one of the hijackers. Six or eight people who were connected to them, news articles where the FBI gave them homes, paid their rent, followed them around. We know Israel was involved in similar things. ...

~ Robert Mahon

I'm a regular reader of your column, though I usually disagree with it quite vehemently, and in fact, would not be averse to being described myself as sympathetic to the 'neo-con movement'. However, I enjoy your style, intelligence, and wide-ranging knowledge.

Regarding your comment on Muravchik's Heaven on Earth – I read the book, and found it fascinating, and entertaining, but it hardly seemed like an 'admiring' history of socialism, American or otherwise. It struck me more as an expose of the repeated failures engendered by (at best) the self-deluded idealists of the 19th century and the tyrannical extremes of the socialist dictatorships of the 20th. He makes a point that the American labor movement moved away from socialism, which decision he feels was what allowed it to succeed so well until recently.

~ Jeff Lipton

I bet Bush WAS informed of the flight schools, Moussaoui's detention, his interest in the airspace around NY and on and on and on. I think the only thing that "surprised" the White House about 9/11 was that there was more than one plane and that those buildings came down.

Certainly John Ashcroft knew something as he ceased using commercial air service in July 2001.

Why would his office then inexplicably deny requests for a routine surveillance warrant with FBI agents practically begging for one? ...

I think they "looked the other way", with Bush simply going on the longest Presidential vacation out of harm's way in Crawford.

The payoff was public support for a war to seize Iraq and Central Asian resources away from the Russians and Chinese – plus an erosion of civil liberties at home.

Big money for Cheney and his pals.

~ C.L. Pettit

Sen. Bob Graham must not allow himself to be silenced by bogus assertions of "National Security" which Bush et al are obviously using to cover up the Truth. The PNAC document openly speaks of the need for another "Pearl Harbor" to motivate Americans toward the Fascist Imperialism of attacks on countries in the Middle East.

Graham obviously has the smoking gun which will prove the Bush at least aided and abetted the 911 murderers to provide a justification to undermine the Constitution and Bill of Rights. We must support Graham at all costs because otherwise America is lost!

~ Howard R Olson, PhD

Regarding Peter Ristov V.'s letter posted May 9:

...My compliments to Peter Ristov for his well written, intelligent letter regarding the UN and Ron Paul. Ristov writes clearly and delineates why Americans have fallen from grace farther and faster than most of us have realized. His remark to the honorable Texas Representative – "He also mentions a standing myth so dear to Americans: they envy us. Don't believe it! America's mystique has faded, our faults have surfaced and they are many and glaring in their majesty" – should be a phrase used by any honorable candidate running against the Bush Cabal.

~ Douglas Herman

Regarding "America's 'Conservative' Christians and the Middle East's" by Christopher Deliso:

Christopher DeLiso's most recent piece comes across as a typically snide and nasty view of middle America as seen from the provincial purlieus of San Francisco Bay. Although I am not a Protestant, much less a fundamentalist, I found it offensive. It is just the sort of article that might be used to discredit the antiwar movement in the eyes of millions of Americans.

Evangelical Protestants are a varied group. Only a minority hold the apocalyptic belief in destiny of the Bush Administration and the secular state of Israel that DeLiso finds so alarming. But he tars them all with the same brush. He accuses them of fascism, ridicules "their miserable lives," characterizes a belief in the second advent as "an upcoming photo op with the Good Lord Jesus," and fervently wishes that they might all be confined to "some empty, high-walled desert" concentration camp. He even goes out of his way to insult Mormons, Scientologists, and Jehovah Witnesses (an apolitical, pacifistic, and innocuous sect). Imagine what the reaction would be to the same kind of poisonous attack on Jews, Moslems, or Catholics!

Conservative Protestants certainly need to be more concerned about the plight of their co-religionists in the Middle East, but you cannot reach them with an article like this one. ...

~ Paul Mouritsen

Great Site but Consider a Name Change

I love your site. Keep up the excellent work. But I must say, you really should consider a name change. It doesn't bother me at all but I fear there are many, many people that could and should be connecting that aren't because a name like "antiwar" makes them think of knee-jerk pacifists chanting in the street with little understanding of the issues involved. That is a shame because you provide an outstanding collection of links and some of the most intelligent, well informed, logically argued commentary to be found anywhere. Think about it.

~ Mark Ellinghaus

Regarding "What About the Iraqi Children?" by Charlotte Aldebron:

This still rings true. Please keep fighting for peace. Many small voices together can make a difference over time. Never give up. My brother-in-law just went to Iraq as an MP Army reservist (he didn't want to go and is a NYC Police Officer who helped after the 9-11 disaster). I pray he comes back okay and helps people as he does in NYC.

War is the choice taken by fools who have run out of ideas.

God Bless.

~ Bill Santianna

Regarding Frank Ybarbo's letter posted May 6:

Frank Ybarbo's letter highlights a common misconception in this country. "The countries in the middle east (except for Israel) have never been able to move beyond their own family feuds nor solve their own problems."

Frank, what could possibly lead you to believe that Israel is solving its own problems? Their problems are a direct result of their own policies and actions, and the solutions (unsuccessful) come in the form of billions of American tax dollars propping up their regime. If we stopped the aid, how long would Israel last?

I agree with Mr. Ybarbo that we should turn off the spigot of foreign aid to the Middle East including Israel, as well as the rest of the world. If Americans want to donate money to foreign people, let them do so through voluntary charities, not coerced taxation.

~ Carter Mitchell, Gurnee, Illinois