Dear Editor. With all the left wing articles published by the
Times, mainly from Lisa Pampuch, the Big Picture column takes the
cake. I cannot understand on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 how the
Times can publish an article that basically places the blame for
the horrific events of that date on America.
Marty Cheek is wrong for blaming America for Sept. 11
Dear Editor.
With all the left wing articles published by the Times, mainly from Lisa Pampuch, the Big Picture column takes the cake. I cannot understand on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 how the Times can publish an article that basically places the blame for the horrific events of that date on America. What lessons are we to learn from this event as my memory of watching this disaster unfold and lost in a dismal funk as I could not believe this was happening and television showing videos of dancing in the street celebrations forthcoming from Islamic nations.
According to Cheek, the seeds for this attack were planted when the United States under the leadership of George Bush Sr. reacted to that despot Saddam Hussein’s vicious attack on a small defenseless country, Kuwait. Iraq was in a long war with Iran at the time and needed oil reserves to further fund his aggression in the Middle East. It had nothing to do with a “disputed” oil field. Hussein had his Republican Guard venturing into Kuwait killing all that stood in the way. Videos of Iraq soldiers executing Kuwait military and civilians were shown all over the world. Bush Sr. gave Hussein an ultimatum, get out of Kuwait or we would take military action. Bush went to the Senate. Operation Desert Storm was approved and then approved by the United Nations and a coalition force of 34-four countries including some Arab countries joined to enforce Desert Storm. Desert Storm lasted less than 100 hours and was a stunning success, but the Iraq forces set fire to more than 700 Kuwait oil wells as part of an exit strategy.
Osama bin Laden was an outlaw in his own country and exiled from others as well. He was not looked upon as any religious figurehead. The United States remained in Saudi Arabia at the request of the Saudi government to protect the country from any further adventures by Hussein. I doubt that bin Laden was bothered by the presences of American troops in the country for religion reasons.
As part of the negotiations with Hussein, we established rules for Iraq and Hussein such as “no fly zones’, no WMDs, no gas warfare, and others. To insure adherence to these rules we had UN inspections and Hussein was to open his arsenal to inspection. Meanwhile he killed 10s of thousands of his own people including gassing more than 100,000 Kurds in the north including woman and children. His constant violations of the rules led George W. Bush going to Congress and getting an approval for invading Iraq. Yes, we found little evidence of WMD, but 100,000 bodies in southern Iraq and just as many more in the north. Cheek’s statement that this was an “illegal” war is just not true.
He might have mentioned our recent venture into Libya without any congressional approval done under the leadership of our current president. The two wars were and still are expensive and a real drain on our country finances as is all the TSA terminals and security measures we have undertaken since 9/11. I remember going to downtown Morgan Hill where a prayer session was held around our flag poles. I also traveled to China right after the first flight restrictions were lifted. I was in South China, at Guangzhou City attending what is called the Canton Faire. Muslims countries were not allowed into China at this time. As I stand out, it was easy to ascertain I was not Chinese. I was going to pretend I was Danish, hard to tell the difference if you are really white. I had many Chinese and other foreigners approach me and ask if I was American and as my Danish is non-existent, I would answer yes. More than I could count I had all kinds of individuals tell me how sorry they felt for Americans and want to shake my hand.
As Americans, we have nothing to apologize for as we have been the beacon of hope for other countries and people entering America legally and illegally. As for oil, the bulk of our oil comes from Canada, Saudi Arabia and Mexico. If we get off the dime, we can develop our own oil fields, but politics just gets in the way. Alternate energy sources would be nice and we would all welcome Cheek’s proposals as to how we can accomplish this without going to the usual wind, sun and ethanol which has been tried and just is not the total answer.
As for Iraq, I am truly sorry we did enter this war, but I am not sorry that Saddam Hussein and his two sons are dead. There are many Iraqi citizens that would agree with me. Sunday (Sept. 11) we will attend church services where we will remember the fallen, both at home and on foreign shores, but we will not apologize and remember that behind it all the real reasons.
Fred Oliveri, Morgan Hill
