Letters that

Letters that

make sense

To the Editor:

Finally, letters I can make some sense of. It’s all so obvious, now that Diana Bird has explained it to me in complete sentences. And to think, if she hadn’t traveled to Cambridge, Mass., to learn from nine academicians that war is a calamity, we yokels and rednecks here in the county would be still thinking that war, death, and destruction are good, wholesome things. Dang. We better git them yaller ribbons down.

Now we can see that, as Ms. Bird points out, the invasion of Kuwait, the instability in the Gulf, and Saddam Hussein’s deplorable behavior are really our own fault. The poor man is a victim. First we invented him and then we encouraged him. I mean, we even sold him weapons. What else was he to do? I don’t know about you folks, but I feel just awful.

Of course I agree that war, any war, represents a failure of diplomacy; that in hindsight any war could theoretically have been avoided, although the appeasers must then be prepared to accept the alternative situation, which might not automatically be better. The Civil War, I’m sure, was unnecessary,. but still I’m glad that the Union was preserved and slavery was eliminated. World War II could have been avoided, I suppose, but I’m glad we put an end to Germany’s extermination of the Jews. Viet Nam I could have done without. I wonder why John Kennedy couldn’t see what he was doing when he sent in the Green Beret “advisers?” He was probably just another one of those guys who loves war.

The bottom line is that, while I understand and sympathize with the pacifists, we are well served by the assumption that not every adversary will submit to compromise in every situation, no matter sophisticated our foreign policy. Moreover, I have known many honest, honorable, dedicated Marines and others in the military who are trained to kill, but nevertheless sincerely believe that their service to their country is also working for peace. The police carry pistols and night sticks, but, the L.A.P.D. notwithstanding, their job is to keep the peace. To dismiss their efforts, and those of the military, as nothing more than serving the cause of war and violence, is gratia tious, and does them a grave injustice.

I agree with John Stuart Mill, who wrote:

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

BILL FITZSIMONS

Flint Hill