My Most Recent DDN Rejection

This is your front-row seat to the final chain of events that led to the creation of this blog (refer to my earlier 'Why the Strange Name?' for additional information). Below is the letter that appeared in the DDN's 'Letters to the Editor' on July 5th that caught my attention:

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Dems are hypocrites on issue of war

The Democratic Party has complained for the past several years that President George W. Bush lied to them and led the United States into the war in Iraq. I have done some research and have come up with some startling facts:

Did you know that President Franklin Roosevelt led the United States into World War II with Germany? Germany did not attack the United States; Japan attacked the United States. Also, President Harry Truman led the United States into the war with Korea. Korea did not attack the United States. President Lyndon Johnson led the United States into war with Vietnam. Vietnam did not attack the United States. In addition, President Bill Clinton sent American troops to Bosnia. Bosnia never attacked the United States.

All of these presidents were Democrats. I wonder if any of them lied to the Republican Party when they led the United States into war with the above countries.

Islamic terrorists attacked the United States in 2001, and Bush responded.

Does anyone see the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party's attack against George W. Bush?

—(name and address masked)

*** The person did sign his letter and identified the city in which he lived (a DDN requirement). As a courtesy, I will not include such personal information on local submissions when I repost them in this blog. My goal here is to challenge the submitter's words, logic or bias--not the attack the submitter him/herself. I am also trying to retain my own anonymity in case someone recognizes their submission, does not care for my critique, and decides to take up a new habit--like stalking! Since the syndicated columnists are paid the 'big bucks' to put their thoughts to paper, they are fair game...

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This piece 'pegged' my internal hypocrisy meter because I immediately recognized it as an blatant attempt by a GOP partisan to deflect criticism of the administration's constantly evolving Iraq policy by a growing majority of Americans. After several hours of research, composing, and polishing, I sent in the following reply at 12:26AM on 6 July:

To the editor:

After reading his recent ‘Dems are hypocrites’ submission (5 July), I was ‘startled’ that Mr. (masked) only used the most elementary logic (Dem president in office, war declared against country X but country X did not attack the US, Dems lied to go to war) in his conclusions about US armed conflicts in the 20^th century. I believe he needed to do a more thorough review of the events he referenced in his letter to see the entire spectrum surrounding those scenarios:

- It was Germany that first declared war against the United States and that action occurred four days after the attack at Pearl Harbor and three days after FDR’s call for Congress to declare war against Japan.

- The US never declared war against North Korea but instead went to the United Nations to ask that organization—employing a 17-nation coalition—to intercede militarily in that Cold War-tinged civil conflict.

- Although disputed by historians, LBJ used two possible acts of Vietnamese aggression against US naval forces stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin to justify his escalating of our involvement in the decades-long Vietnamese civil war.

- NATO, not the United States, was the lead organization tasked during the ‘shooting’ portion of the Bosnian conflict. Neither NATO nor Clinton declared war and US troops were introduced to perform peacekeeping duties only after the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords.

- In all of the above scenarios, acts of aggression against the US (either directly or to regions/countries of national concern) provoked our responses—before Iraq, we never preemptively attacked another nation.

I do agree with one of his statements: Islamic terrorists, based in Afghanistan, did attack the US in 2001 and President Bush took the appropriate action in our subsequent military response (Operation ENDURING FREEDOM). Almost all Democrats supported this action against a nation directly linked to this unprecedented tragedy on US soil. They almost all disagree, however, with the president’s preemptive actions against Iraq in 2003—a nation that has been repeatedly proven not to have been involved with the 9/11 events.

Something Mr. (masked) chose to ignore during his search for Democrat deception and duplicity is the GOP’s own hypocrisy in terms of their habit of retreating from conflicts. It was Eisenhower who negotiated the Panmunjom cease fire agreement that has left North and South Korea at a technical state of war for the past 53 years. This act of ‘appeasement’ can be directly linked to the potential nuclear jeopardy our nation now faces. Nixon negotiated a settlement—‘peace with honor’—with the North Vietnamese in 1973. South Vietnam fell just two short years later, placing them under Communist control and reunifying this colonially divided nation. Reagan withdrew US troops from their UN-sanctioned peacekeeping mission in Lebanon four months after the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut that claimed 241 lives. This pullout helped extend the on-going Lebanese civil war for an additional six years.

When Mr. (masked) and his kind dredge up narrow interpretations of historic events or use the term ‘cut and run’ to discredit any opposition to the current ‘stay the course’ strategy in Iraq, the failure of their long-term memories (pre-Clinton) is quite evident.

Almost four hours of work went into this email. In that short span, I breathed live into those bits--535 words, 10 paragraphs, 18 sentences. According to my version of Microsoft Word, it was written at a 15.4 grade level--perhaps a little lofty for an ordinary reader. I just thought it was too good of a rebuttal to that original faulty claim and didn't want it to go to waste or be deleted forever via the DDN editor's desktop Recycle Bin.

I guess I can take solace in how this whole thing worked itself out. Although that email didn't make it to print, a new life has now risen from its digital ashes...vive l'Internet!