Some Things Are True

No Matter How You Lean

To the Editor:

A recent letter to The Bee implied that those who may be labeled “left” perform a “huge disservice” to the military in our post September 11th world [“The Trouble With The Left,” Letter Hive, 8/1/08]. Well, labels do not stick to complicated surfaces, and Iraq is a complicated surface.

I was on the Whitestone Bridge the morning of 9/11/01. As I arrived at midspan I observed the Twin Towers spewing thick black smoke which trailed through the otherwise crystal clear September morning. It was surreal, and I will carry that horrifying vision to my grave and beyond. The deaths of nearly 3,000 innocent people were real and yet difficult for a civilized person to comprehend. In the immediate aftermath I was both fearful and angry. I wanted vengeance. In fact, I still want vengeance against those who attacked our soil on September 11, 2001. In my view, our brave military appropriately sought to bring justice to those responsible and to defend our freedom and our very way of life when they attacked Al Qaida in Afghanistan and hunted for Bin Laden. Our attack in Afghanistan was justified and provoked by September 11th. At the time of the initial military action in Afghanistan, the United States was truly united, right and left, against the enemy who had invaded our soil.

However, the United States then ramped up the rhetoric regarding Iraq, deemphasized Afghanistan and invaded Iraq. The numerous questions surrounding the lead-up to the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq have been debated by many, and will continue to be debated for generations. Clearly, the United States attack on Iraq was preemptive and without direct provocation. Our military heroes have fought bravely and many have died or been severely injured in the Iraq theater in the effort to liberate Iraq from a dictatorial stranglehold, but not to directly avenge the nearly 3,000 deaths of September 11, 2001. The letter to The Bee that intonated that there is a direct link between the September 11th deaths and Iraq is, at the very best, misleading. The global war on terror does not change the fact that there is no evidence that Iraq had any direct connection to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and that there was a manipulation of the evidence by our government. This is true if you “lean right” or if you “lean left.”

Sincerely,

Richard English

3 Curry Drive, Newtown                                                 August 4, 2008