No More Money for Iraq
Dear Editor,
Generals serve the president, not the American people. We have to ask Congress not to betray us and not betray our brave armed forces stuck in the Iraq quagmire. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is asking Congress to approve nearly $190 billion more to continue the sacrifice of American lives to privatize Iraqi oil. Congress is our only hope to stop this insanity now!Â
Frank Crosby, Morgan Hill
Judge Individuals Instead of Tarnishing Islam
Dear Editor,
It is always a problem of those who truly believe in freedom of speech, what to do when that speech is inaccurate or repulsive to one’s own beliefs. Do you ignore it and hope that if you don’t call attention to it will fade away from people’s consciousness sooner?
Do you chalk it up to an exercise in tolerance, and hope that most people were as appalled by such expressions of fear and bigotry as you were?
The reason I have decided to write now is that I had the great fortune to attend the mosque open house last Saturday at the San Martin Lions Club. This was an interfaith initiative hosted by the South Valley Islamic Community. Religious leaders of four religions, two mayors, two councilmen, a U.S Congressman and many thoughtful and concerned citizens were there to show their support. We were also there to learn more about a religion that a recent poll showed 60 percent of Americans were not very knowledgeable about Islam and 40 percent of those polled had prejudiced feelings against Muslims.
We were all greeted with such warmth and hospitality and given the great privilege of having several informational presentations including a well done overview on Islam, Muslims and the essence of Ramadan. Another was on the state of Muslim civil rights in America. All this was followed by a question-and-answer session with the questions being provided by people in the audience. You could not help but be impressed by how religions have more in common than we might at first believe and that our differences are to be celebrated not feared.
It is my firm belief that anyone who attended that event would see only our friends and neighbors who are choosing to practice and pray to God in the way that does honor to the religious ethics everywhere. No one would confuse our community members with a fringe group that has a twisted and perverse distortion of their teachings. Their condemnation of them is as strong as our condemnation of the Timothy McVeighs or the Jim Joneses of the world.
I have no trouble seeing the difference between religious church attendees and a few radical lunatics who ignore the religious teachings and substitute it with hate and death. Those few sick individuals then have the audacity to claim their horrible acts are in the name of religion. We should judge the individual and not tarnish the whole religion because of a few grievously misguided and dangerous people.
Kathy Sullivan, Morgan Hill
