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Letters to the Editor for Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Published: July 22, 2008

Indict the president? You’ve got to be crazy
The author of a July 22 letter to the editor stated his belief that that President Bush should be indicted for war crimes! That is absurd and ridiculous. President Bush has done an overall good job (not perfect and some mistakes), but what president has not made mistakes during his term?

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I cannot recall any perfect ones in my lifetime, and I have lived under 12 presidents. One thing stands out in my mind: the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Have we had any attacks since then on U.S. soil? No. I believe President Bush deserves some credit for that, don’t you think? Security has been foremost in his presidency, as well as trying to help a small country have some form of democracy and freedom.

While I am writing I would like to mention the current candidates for the upcoming elections in November and give my assessment of them. Senator Barack Obama is unknown and has only been a U.S. Senator for a couple of years; to my knowledge, he has not accomplished anything helpful or of any real significance to our country. He talks good but talk is cheap; action speaks louder than words.

Sen. John McCain is a war hero, a veteran and former POW for more than five years with experience in the U.S. Senate for a number of years. He’s a real American who understands war and has experienced it personally. He does not require any “on the job” training to become president of the United States. If he picks the proper candidate for vice president, I believe he can win. My choice for vice president to run with McCain is Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State and a very smart and intelligent woman who has good credibility and is known around the world with excellent background and history of serving her country. The team of McCain and Rice can serve us well and will be a formidable force for the future.

Now back to the letter writer, he and I both have the right to state our opinions; that is another reason we need to maintain our freedom as Americans and help keep this country strong.
JOSEPH WILLS
Lynchburg

Obama and abortion
If voters want to vote for Barack Obama, it’s their rightful choice; if voters who call themselves Christians want to vote for Barack Obama, they may want to identify themselves as something other than “Christian.”

All you have to do is to know a little about Obama’s voting record in the Illinois Senate, where he voted against a bill (three times) that would prevent doctors from inducing labor, and then letting these babies die, alone and unattended. This is post-birth abortion, clearly infanticide.

But then, it’s not surprising that Obama would see nothing wrong with this: Obama said right out loud that he didn’t really know when life began. (Perhaps it begins in the second year of college and ends when one becomes old and disabled?) Even NARAL and other abortion supporters didn’t think that banning this post-birth abortion “procedure” was really about abortion. Even Hillary Clinton voted for the national version of the bill Obama killed.

So don’t you folks go to church and pray, and then tell me that you support a man who in his official capacity as state senator of Illinois decided that already-born babies didn’t have a right to life! One day, a similar monster may arise and tell you that you’re too old to live, or too poor, or too feeble. Or of the wrong sex. Or race.
JIM McFARLAND
Lynchburg

Reader Reactions

Posted by ( JacksonPollock ) on July 26, 2008 at 11:56 pm

flash10: I know the Koran; in fact I teach it in one of my classes. I never said, in my post, that Bush wrote the Koran, and only a fool would suggest otherwise. And, with all due respect, what is the history of “fake christians?” Take an abbreviated look at the roots of Judeo-Christianity below and read about Charlemagne’s “crusade” and try to understand that GWB’s Iraq invasion is also a crusade (he even referred to it, at one time, as a crusade, which sent a chill down the spine of the Middle-Eastern nations).

Exodus 15:3 “The Lord is a man of war.”

Number 21: 34, 35: “And the LORD said unto Moses, Fear him not: for I have delivered him into thy hand, and all his people ... So they smote him, and his sons, and all his people, until there was none left him alive: and they possessed his land.”

Deuteronomy 20:16 “Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes.”

Deut. 20:17 (King James): “But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee.”

Joshua 10:40 “So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded.”

So, you can see, it is not only Allah who instructs followers to kill and destroy.

The Muslims, like the Christian, preach love, but, unfortunately, there are a few in both religions that practice war. What you refer to as Islamic Terrorists are no worse than Christian Terrorists. And, as for the confessions from the prisoners at Git-mo, how reliable are those? Was it not McCain, himself, who said that he gave the names of the Green Bay Packers football team (a few weeks ago, while in Pittsburgh, he decided that it was the Pittsburgh Steelers team - good for a few more Pittsburgh votes) when he was a prisoner. How reliable was that? When one is being drowned, one will say anything to get relief and, usually, as McCain, the man who has been there, what is said is not true.

99% of the Islamic people in the world are peace loving individuals who wish to be left alone. The same is true of the Christians in this world. The largest population of Muslims is not centered in the Middle-East but in Indonesia; when was the last time an Indonesian Islamic terrorist destroyed anything? Read a little about the Islam religion rather than base your “knowledge” on what you hear on Fox News or from Rush.

And, my friend, I am not the conspiracy theorist here; GWB is the one who conveniently raises the terrorist level whenever it is advantageous to his party. Fortunately, the majority of the nation doesn’t pay attention to his crying wolf anymore. Most of us are no longer afraid of the boogeyman.

And, in conclusion, how many “innocent prey” did John McCain kill during his bombing runs over North Vietnam? Don’t you think that there were fanatical North Vietnam individuals who were saying about McCain and the other American prisoners, what you are saying about the prisoners at Git-mo, “they should have been tortured to death a long time ago in the same way many of them admitted to killing their innocent prey.”

There is nothing wrong with using the sword to maintain peace, but when Bush uses the sword to go into a sovereign nation that was not in any way involved in 9/11, that is very poor leadership. Had he and Rumsfeld listened to the “generals on the ground” after the invasion, there would have been no need for the “surge.” The generals were saying that it would take more than 3 times the number of troops there to maintain the peace. Those generals were fired, and other generals, who agreed with Rummy and the Prez, were given command of the fiasco post-war Iraq. And, if McBush had had foresight into what this foolish war would become, like Obama, we wouldn’t have been in Iraq to begin with. It is time for a change, and we don’t need 4 years of a tottering old man in the White House continuing with the Bush doctrine and trying to figure out the world after Vietnam. Obama goes to Germany and gives a great speech to over 200,000; McCain goes to a German restaurant in Ohio. McCain is, sadly, pathetic. Peace.

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Posted by ( Ken ) on July 25, 2008 at 6:01 pm

(oldman)"Fred - Since you are so disillusioned in this Country perhaps I could offer you one-way air fare to Iraq.” --- Fred has a “right” to express his opinion and I personally fully agree with his excellent letter to the editor. If one cannot express their informed opinion as Fred has done without being forced or encouraged to leave Bushland, then I will happily join him on a one-ticket to somewhere, not Iraq, Bush has destroyed it! Since oldman supports Bush War Crime policies, then Iraq is the place for him! Historians will clearly describe Bush for what he is, ignorant, arrogant and an incompetent war criminal!

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Posted by ( flash10 ) on July 25, 2008 at 4:28 pm

Pollock, perhaps your time might be spent more wisely studying the message of the koran instead of the history of fake christians. You sound like a conspiracy clown when you claim that Bush has been trying to scare us into the world situation we are facing. Bush did not write the Koran, you fool! I know it’s the easiest way out of actually thinking logically about something if you can just blame Bush for it, but there’s really more to reality than that.Those confessed-mass murderers we have at guantanamo are not ‘boogey men’ and they should have been tortured to death a long time ago in the same way many of them admitted to killing their innocent prey. Unfortunately, people like you continue to demand that we waste our tax dollars to ensure these demons have top attorneys and court privileges they will never deserve. As far as under-estimating them goes, you simply do not understand the islamic religion accurately if you honestly think these people are not dangerous and do not pose a threat to us. We can argue all day long about what the president should have done and how the war should have been fought (how many times do I have to say that Bush has made plenty of mistakes?) but the fact is that neither of us has access to the intelligence needed to really understand when we should have had our troops where and for how long. If you or I were capable of that, we would not be leaving opinion posts on this website. You and your liberal friends have been second guessing Bush since day one, though, because your boxers are still in a wad over the global warming-hypocrite and phony al gore not winning in 2000. Although obama can not seem to decide from one day to the next which way he views the troop surge, Mccain has been right about it from day one and there is no denying that it has been successful....probably not perfect in every way, but at least worth the effort given the circumstances. Violence levels are down dramatically and the fact that Iraq now actually has a democratic governement telling us that we should consider leaving means that something somewhere along the way went right. To set the record straight about Mccain’s comments concerning US troops being in Iraq for 100 years, he was not implying that our current troop levels would remain there that long. I’ll give you a pass on that one, though, because you probably didnt hear the full context of those comments from katie couric or the clinton news network.We’ve had troops stationed in many countries all over the world now for the better part of 100 years and nobody has said anything about that. (excluding the conspiracy lunatics and anyone dumb enough to use the term ‘neocon’) It is unrealistic to think that we should not have at least a small number of troops in the area for the long term, such as the case is in Japan, Germany, and many other powerful nations today. My advice to you is to get a real understanding of our enemies and the ideology behind why they want to destroy us. Until you take the time to figure that out you have no intelligent basis to gather informed opinions about this matter. Of course, you could just keep chanting the mindless “change we can believe in” crap or “it’s all bush’s fault!”....what a bunch of dumb and pathetic morons!

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Posted by ( luv2bliberal ) on July 25, 2008 at 2:37 pm

JackSin,

I guess if one has never accomplished anything, one must make it up! B.O. is naive and doesn’t have the gravitas to be the leader of this great country.

July 23, 2008

“Barack Obama today boasted about a bill in “my committee,’’ a committee on which he has no seat.

While speaking to the press in the Israeli town of Sderot, Obama mistakenly put the U.S. Senate banking committee on his resume, although the Illinois senator does not serve on the committee and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) is the chairman.”

http://www.freedomsenemies.com/_Obama/ObamaLies.htm

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Posted by ( luv2bliberal ) on July 25, 2008 at 2:29 pm

JackSin,

Here is a small part of your your “boogey man”

Chronological List of Islamic Terrorist Attacks, 1968 - 2004
1968

June 5 - U.S. presidential candidate Robert Kennedy murdered by Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan, in Los Angeles, which causes further terrorist attacks, as Arab terrorist groups demanded his release.

1969

Feb. 18 - Boeing 707 attacked at Zurich, Switzerland, killing the pilot and 3 passengers.

Aug. 29 - TWA 707 hijacked from Rome to Damascus, released with only wounded.

Nov. 27- EL AL office in Athens, Greece attacked. Innocent bystanders killed.

1970

Feb. 21 - Swiss airliner blown up over Switzerland, killing all 47 people on board.

Feb. 23 - PLO terrorists open fire on a busload of Christian pilgrims killing 1 and wounding 2 Americans.

April 21- Bomb explodes aboard a Philippines airliner. All 36 aboard are killed.

Sept. 6 - �Skyjack Sunday� in Jordan. 3 planes (TWA, Swissair, Pan Am) en route to the U.S. hijacked, 400+ hostages, planes blown up in Jordan, Governments agreed to PFLP�s demands, released terrorists from jails and hostages released.

Sept. 14 - The PFLP hijacked TWA flight to Ammon, 4 Americans injured.

1971
Nov. 28 - Jordanian prime minister Tal killed by terrorists at the Sheraton Hotel in Cairo, Egypt.

Dec. - Jordanian ambassador to London, England is shot by hit squad.

1972

Jan. 26 - Bomb explodes on a Yugoslav plane killing all but one passenger.

May 30 - Ben Gurion Airport, Israel attack killed 26, and wounded 78 U.S. citizens from Puerto Rico.

Sept. 5 - Palestinian terrorists seize 11 athletes in the Olympic Village in Munich, Germany, 9 hostages and 5 terrorists killed, plus David Berger from Cleveland.

1973

March 2 - Khartoum, Sudan. Cleo Noel, Jr., U.S. ambassador, and George C. Moore, U.S. diplomat, were held hostage and then killed by terrorists at the U.S. Embassy.

Aug. 5 - Suicide squad attacks Athens airport, Greece, killing 3 civilians and injuring 55.

Dec. 17 - Bomb explodes at Pan Am office at Rome, Italy killing 32 and injuring 50+. The terrorists take 7 Italian policemen hostage and hijack an aircraft to Athens, Greece, killing one of them.

1974

March 1 - Diplomats taken hostage from Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, 2 that are killed are Americans.

April 11 - Kiryat Shmona Massacre at an apartment building killing 18 people, 9 were children.

Sept. 8 - Athens, Greece. TWA Flight 841 exploded from bomb in cargo hold, all 88 passengers killed, including 32-year-old Steven Lowe, an American citizen.

Nov. 23 - British DC-10 hijacked at Dubai, UAE, flown to Tunisia where a German passenger was killed.

1975

Jan. 19 - Arab terrorists attack Orly airport, Paris, France, seizing 10 hostages from a bathroom. French provided the terrorists with a plane to fly them to safety in Baghdad, Iraq.

Sept. 30 - Hungarian airplane explodes killing all 64 persons on board.

Dec. 21 - Carlos �The Jackal� holds 11 oil ministers and 59 civilians hostage during the OPEC meeting in Vienna, Austria. Flew to Algeria, got $300,000,000 in ransom money, Carlos and his Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorists escape.

http://ballyblog.wordpress.com/2007/07/03/terrorists-are-muslims-list-of-islamic-terrorist-attacks/

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Posted by ( JacksonPollock ) on July 25, 2008 at 1:08 pm

flash10: “. . . you cannot underestimate the threat that we face from this religion of hate.”

Yes I can. “radical Islam” is the boogey man created by Bush and the right wing to frighten the American public into making them believe that only Bush and the neocons can save us from the boogey man. I don’t know about you, but I got over the fear of the boogey man many years ago. And you refer to the Islamic religion as the “religion of hate. The history of hate for the Islamic faith is minimal compared to the history of hate from the Christian faith (and I am a Christian, but recognize that some Christians don’t act Christ like). I recall a time in the South when Blacks were not welcomed into white Christian churches and were, in fact, shown the door. I recall a time when a fanatical “Christian” bombed an abortion clinic, killing people. I recall a time when a fanatical “Christian” President took this nation into a foolish war that resulted in the needless deaths of thousands (more than killed on 9/11) of American soldiers and the unnecessary deaths of 1000s of Iraqi citizens. All of this in the name of Christianity (before going into Iraq Bush was asked if he had consulted his father, George H. W. Bush, and Bush replied that “There’s a higher father that I appeal to.” Had he checked with his earthly father, the former president would have advised against it).

My friend, if you listen to what Senator Obama says, he does NOT talk of surrender. He is calling for what should have been the logical policy in Iraq (in fact, what the “surge” was supposed to accomplish) and that is to let the Iraqis take charge of their own country when the time is ready. We are now an ally to the Iraqis; in a short time, we will be occupiers. Now Bush is even suggesting a time “horizon” (aka, time table) for getting out of Iraq, and the president of Iraq and the people are ready to show the Americans the door. But if you think that we need to stay in Iraq for 100 years to fight the “boogey man,” then vote for John “I don’t know where in the hell the Iraq/Afghanistan border is” McCain. The change is to get us out of Iraq and go after Osama bin laden in Afghanistan/Pakistan, where Bush should have put the troops in the first place. He has emboldened the enemy by allowing al qaeda to regroup and rebuild in the Afghan/Pakistan border, while American invaded a sovereign country that posed no threat to us.

You can vote for McBush to save us from the boogey man, and you like will, but Obama is more capable of creating and maintaining a peaceful Middle East, a more civil world and a better economy. McBush is capable of giving us 4 more years of Bush’s failed international and domestic policies. One of the few things Bush has been successful in accomplishing is to make people like you afraid of the boogey man again.

oldman. Pleeeeez . . . Your post is so cliche it is ridiculous. “one-way ticket,” “Benedict Arnold,” “perhaps you could swim.” These comments go back to Vietnam and were just as ridiculous then as they are now. Can’t you do better than this, oldman? I guess not.

luv. I never said that you would vote for Bush, but if you want to, that is fine . . . write his name in on election day. I’m sure he will get a half dozen votes that won’t go to McBush. And is “gravitas” Fox News’ or Rush’s Word of the Day? You have used it often in your posts, and I’m so glad that you have used it, in most cases, correctly. What a piece of work you are.

Peace.

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Posted by ( luv2bliberal ) on July 25, 2008 at 10:00 am

Fred,

Can you even reach that high? Need to get a “leg up” from Peg?

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Posted by ( Fred ) on July 25, 2008 at 9:34 am

Damn! I forgot to put the lid on my garbage can!

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Posted by ( luv2bliberal ) on July 25, 2008 at 8:18 am

Thank you JackSin for showing me where I said I would vote for Bush. Once again you provide no proof for your hot air. You called me a racist until you found out I was black! You are great at drinking the kool-aid of the DNC and resorting to simple classifications of names and people. Your posts have about as much gravitas as Obama. When he shouted “CHANGE”, none of us knew it would be his mind. Daily.

You need to loosen the Depends. They are cutting off the blood flow.

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Posted by ( shoebox ) on July 25, 2008 at 6:45 am

Flash, you must be a christian.

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