Letters to the editor: 09/19/02

Students voice praise for volunteers

To the Editor:

Even though our local rescue workers were not there, we are grateful for the work they do to keep us safe each day. Our firemen, police, EMS and rescue squad members are always ready to help us.

We also appreciate the men and women who are serving in our military to defend our country and our freedom.

We realize we are indebted to our teachers, doctors and family members who protect us daily.

We know there's no way we can personally thank all the volunteers who make our community special, but we have a new appreciation of these people.

Cheryl Blanton's fifth-grade class

Scotts Creek Elementary School

(Letter signed by16 students)

It's time for America to practice humility

To the Editor:

I, too, applaud the heroism of the firefighters, police and EMS personnel who died trying to help the victims of the attacks, and the many private citizens who organized relief efforts. And I think that the third hijacked airliner of untrained and unarmed American civilians who gave their lives to stop the terrorists from using that plane as a weapon of mass destruction well proved that even ordinary, everyday Americans do not lack the courage to stand up to such an obvious enemy of freedom as those terrorists clearly were. I think only a fool would doubt the patriotism of Americans or their pride in America.

However, it is not too difficult to be proud of a country that is clearly the world's largest economic and military superpower. I fear it is much more difficult for we Americans to take a moment to exercise humility, to use restraint, and to be willing to question our own actions as a nation.

Surely by now every American know that the Islamic terrorists trained by Osama bin Laden's Al Queda organization caused the disaster of 9-11. But how many Americans remember that it was our own CIA in the 1980s that gladly trained and gave weapons to the same Islamic extremists to fight a guerilla war when it served the perceived U.S. Cold War security interests? Just like we've provided training and given weapons to oppressive governments in unstable countries like Nicaragua, Iran, Somalia and that other little country our president seems so anxious to attack lately, Iraq.

Surely every American now know that nearly 3,000 Americans died in the attack of 9-11, one of the worst disasters ever on American soil. But I wonder how many Americans remember that more like 1 million Afghanis and Islamic extremists we called "freedom fighters" died fighting in the CIA-sponsored war against the Soviets on Afghani soil? A war our CIA intended to be a "Vietnam" for the Soviets and which many historians credit with the breakup of the Soviet empire. A war that the U.S. then walked away from and left Afghanistan devastated, full of mines, unexploded bombs and hungry, battle-hardened Islamic extremists.

I fear there is an enemy of democracy and freedom far more powerful than Osama bin Laden, but far more difficult to rally Americans to "come together" to fight against, because this enemy doesn't wear a black hat making it so easy to identify.

If we are making 9-11 an annual holiday, I think there is a far greater need than to create another "day of coming together as Americans to honor fallen heroes." We do already rightly have such holidays like Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Veteran's Day, etc. We have many holidays to celebrate national pride.

I would ask that 9-11 become a holiday to exercise and celebrate national humility. We are now citizens of the last superpower on Earth, a position and responsibility no other people have ever had to fulfill. Surely we can take a day to be brave enough to look seriously and closely at our own past and present actions as a nation, at least as closely as we look at the actions of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

In this last year I have also heard that obesity among Americans, even children, is becoming a crisis. Evidence of global warming is increasing, while the U.S. continues to be the world's biggest air polluter. Air pollution here in the mountains is causing premature death and disease. It is lately reported that the U.S. now puts more of its citizens in prison than Russia or any other developed nation as it fights its war on drugs, while drug abuse increases.

And yet our president seems lately obsessed with convincing the United Nations that Saddam Hussein is the greatest enemy of freedom and democracy in the world.

Isn't it time for America to practice and honor humility, too, along with our national pride?

Robert Franz

Whittier

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