Definitions And Defenses

To the Editor:

Mr Gibney, have you overlooked the last two paragraphs of my letter? My suggestion, March 21, to go to PBS.org for the Frontline special and April 4’s challenge to read Nat Hentoff in the Village Voice or Essam Al-Ghalib of the Arab News still stands.

Read slowly Mr Gibney, the definition I used for the world “forthcoming” comes from an obscure source called Webster’s College Dictionary Second Revised Edition copyright 2000 by Random House, Inc. But OK, I’ll play along. Only “people” can be forthcoming. Would you say the “news” people at CNN qualify for that job? Here comes another challenge. According to The New York Times op-ed piece April 11 by Eason Jordan (chief news executive at CNN) his organization knew for 12 years (first hand) of the atrocities in Iraq. What have we heard from them over the last 12 years? Mr Jordan says it wasn’t reported on to protect its reporters. Yet they weren’t prisoners in Baghdad. They could’ve pulled out many times over 12 years. I suppose they would’ve lost their prestigious visa status which made them the only news organization with such a placement in Baghdad. Their claim to that position hasn’t helped humanity. They ignored their duties to report the facts. In fact, the impression I get is somewhat antiwar. We can all appreciate how forthcoming CNN has been. Because of that many more have died.

About my ability to intuit, am I wrong about you? Do you believe the stories of atrocities in Iraq? If you deny them, I am correct. On the other hand, if you believe them true, then by your own words you support this war. That would be quite an amazing thing given your “contempt” toward those who serve in our military.

No, Mr Gibney, I didn’t mean “isolationists.” The world “isolationist” doesn’t even come close to describing the actions of the United States before December 11, 1941 (or at any time in history). If we were isolationists we wouldn’t have been giving aid to the Allies. The word is “interventionists.” If that’s a new world for you, let me define it: government interference in the affairs of another state. We did this in 1939 after the invasion of Poland by stopping all shipments of arms to warring nations (later allowing the Allies to buy goods). In 1940 we gave Great Britain 50 destroyers in exchange for a 99-year lease of bases in Bermuda, Newfoundland, and the West Indies. On March 11, 1941, Roosevelt got his Lend-Lease Act passed which, as he put it, was helping to put out the fire in your neighbor’s house before your own house caught fire and burned down. All our interventionism didn’t stop Hitler’s evil. My obviously limited knowledge of US policy during the period surrounding WWII leaves me with no understanding of your point about the Japanese attack which you say made the “best interest” policy indefensible. Please explain the “best interest” policy or refer me to a source that will educate me.

I have decided another thing about you. That is that you know full well what’s going on under militant “Islam” but you choose to be contemptuous toward those willing to sacrifice to save humanity from such evil.

Linda Villafano

79 Mt Pleasant Road, Newtown                                   April 14, 2003