Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Is Burke for real?

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Another Mike Burke letter, another case of me scratching my head in disbelief.

When Burke compares the American Revolution with our current mess in Iraq, I'm left wondering: Who's the foreign occupying force that's being ousted from Iraq?

And the Civil War?

Well, yeah, we've ignited one in the only secular country in the region ... oops. But when Burke comes to his view of World War II, I'm really confused. That was when FDR famously warned the country that all we had to fear was fear itself.

Conversely, the Bush/Cheney/Rove administration has elevated fear-mongering to an artform.

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Harry Truman instituted The Truman Commission to crack down on war profiteering during World War II.

Dick Cheney (a branch of government unto himself) on the other hand is busy handing out huge no-bid contracts to Halliburton and other cronies. What's even more baffling is that Mr. Burke would conveniently omit Vietnam, clearly the most similar to the quagmire that is Iraq.

Though there are differences—most notably that, unlike Iraq, there was a plan to get out of Vietnam.

Pat Smith

Ko Olina, Hawaii

(formerly of Ketchum)