Reader Feedback
Kudos to Don Feder on “John Kerry’s Judgment” (SCAN, April/May). Unfortunately he did not go quite deep enough. In his 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry not only accused his fellow servicemen of doing all the horrible things that Feder highlights, but also said that the government made these men do them. Not a hint of personal or leadership responsibility at the small unit level, just blame for the entire government.
I am a former Marine infantry officer who fought in Vietnam. I saw none of the rape and pillaging or drug use that Kerry laid on all of us.
Putting someone with the mindset of John Kerry in the White House would be dangerous. His plea for a unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam in 1971 echoes his call for essentially the same thing now in Iraq. Considering the prospects of Kerry in our Executive Office, Osama bin Laden must be dancing with his cane.
Wallace Dixon
Raleigh, North Carolina
Don Feder’s analysis of John Kerry’s motives is like Maureen Dowd’s analysis of George W. Bush’s. Mr. Feder should try not to be as hysterical as the New York Times.
Karl Zinsmeister’s detailed and frank reporting of the Iraq war (“The Guerilla War,” April/May) is the best war reporting since Guadalcanal Diary. I have a son-in-law in Iraq and two grandsons being prepared to go. We need to understand what our sons and daughters face.
Robert Burton
Lindon, Utah
Reading Karl Zinsmeister’s eloquent “The Cold Realities of Our Fight in Iraq” (BIRD’S EYE, April/May) and his compelling piece, “The Guerilla War,” was a satisfying and moving experience. I would like very much for both to become mandatory reading for all those willing to believe, like Ted Kennedy, that Iraq is “George Bush’s Vietnam.”
The men and women engaged in this arduous and daunting task do so with resolve and courage while simultaneously upholding the dignity of the Iraqi people. How fortunate we are to be protected and served by our armed forces.
Thank you for a balanced perspective on Iraq. It was a refreshing change and sorely needed in the face of all the shrill reporting dominating the news to date.
Helen Kreger
Westland, Michigan
I am an 82-year-old Ph.D. microbiologist who subscribes to far more than I can read. Last night I couldn’t sleep after knee replacement surgery. My wife and I have an agreement that reading in bed is fully acceptable if done unobtrusively, so I grabbed the April/May issue of The American Enterprise and read it cover to cover. Karl Zinsmeister’s “The Guerilla War” was absolutely riveting. It should be serialized in every major newspaper. I thought as I read it, “If only this could be propagated everywhere—or, more specifically on mass television programs.” I just had to write.
Charles Zierdt
Rockville, Maryland
Please allow me to respond to your news item about PETA’s latest anti-fur flier
(SIDELIGHTS, March). Because our flier exposes the extreme violence of the fur industry, we are handing it out to kids 13 years and older only, or directly to their mothers.
As a mother myself, I do everything I can to teach my daughter that cruelty and violence are wrong. That’s why I cannot understand why any parent would ever choose to wear fur. Perhaps they don’t know that animals caught in the wild for their fur face days of agony in traps, tearing flesh and breaking bones in a struggle to get free. On fur farms, animals are killed by being poisoned, gassed, strangled, or electrocuted.
Let’s choose kindness by shunning products, such as fur, that involve the unnecessary suffering of so many innocent animals.
Liz Welsh
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Regarding UCLA’s Fifth Dimension program (“School Daze,” SCAN, April/ May), the word “emote” is bad enough used alone; when modified by “culturally,” I can only gag. The program description strengthens my contention, as a “wordaholic” literacy tutor, that folks who have something to say use straightforward words, while pretenders resort to the unfamiliar, hoping readers will assume erudition where there is none.
Graden Harger
Houston, Texas
