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Pro-Gunner

ETS!,

Hey guys you're missing a couple of things on the gun control issue, regardless of your feelings for or against. There are a lot of good points on both sides.

The real problem is not a lack of laws but a lack of enforcement of what is already on the books. There seems to be no penalty for those who break these or any other laws. We as a nation of sue-happy individuals curiously have an attitude of it is someone else's fault. It is time we took responsibility for our own lives, homes, family, and friends. If we as a nation would do this a lot of the problems we face would take care of themselves.

Instead politicians of all ideals (and we as a people) like to stand before the media, beat our chests and say "woe are us." Just in case anyone is in doubt, I am a pro-gunner. This, however, is not the issue. The real issue is for all of us, individuals, politicians, and media to take responsibility for ourselves. I may not agree or like something a person legally does, but I would not infringe on their right to do it. The Constitution of the United States is the most unique and forward thinking document in the world. It should not be dismissed lightly. It is time for us all to clean our own houses.

Mike Smith, via e-mail

And, Mike, you can't have it both ways. To actually protest that the government should enforce its own laws, then turn around and say we don't need any laws, just personal responsibility, is logically inconsistent. It would be more consistent to just say: "Hey, as long as I've got my Ruger, y'all better leave me and mine alone!" Too bad about the schizophrenic guy who lives next door with his arsenal of semi-automatic weapons. Should we leave him alone, too, or infringe on his "rights?"

War Crimes

Before any comment is made upon the two letters ("Against The Bombing" and "For The Bombing" in the June 1999 issue), the point must first be made that:

Bombing A City Is Criminal.

Bombing A City Is A War Crime.

It does not matter what arguments are extended for or against the bombing of a city --

Bombing A City Is Wrong.

Part of the problem with the Balkans has been the loopholes left in the Nuremberg laws at the end of World War Two. No crimes which had been committed by the Allies were prosecuted, and were subsequently left out of the laws. Because of this, no one in the Balkans has been prosecuted for ethnic cleansing (committed upon Germany and Poland at the end of the war, including Operation Keelhaul), mass rape (as committed upon Germany by the Russians), or fire bombings and atomic bombings (Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc.), or detention camps (the holding of whole populations and armies at the end of World War Two--including Italian women with no known family members to vouch for them, the Soviet labor and detention camps, and the Japanese in America).

Many arguments have been made in mitigation of these actions. Understand clearly--there are NO mitigating circumstances. These actions were wrong. The people who committed them should have been punished (I do not argue they could have been, especially in an exceedingly difficult time--no country could possibly have had the courage to punish its own at that time). It has been pointed out many times that the lapses in the Nuremberg trials would bear bitter fruit in the future. The future is here, and that tree is grown.

In reference to the letter "For The Bombing," listing a group of supporters is not an argument. Especially not in the case of Daniel Goldhagen, who is promoting an ideology that was specifically denied during the Nuremberg trials (an instance in which these trials did close a loophole): collective guilt of an entire population. It has been said repeatedly that Mr. Goldhagen's book is "academic" or "scientific." These same descriptions were extended toward books in the nineteenth century that argued--from a scientific point of view--that women should not exert themselves outside the home, or it would shrink their wombs. Books promoting collective guilt have been used through the centuries to blame everyone from Women to Jews of "racial guilt" or "taint."

I deeply respect Elie Wiesel, who has taught his daughter not to hate Germans as a people, because he knows from horrible experience where mass-hate can lead. Mr. Wiesel is so honest and scrupulous in his pursuit of justice, not just revenge, that he has even defended concentration camp guards and German soldiers who risked their lives to save his people, or at least refused to persecute them. But simply listing him is no argument. There is no such thing as collective virtue, either.

(I should point out that, among my many racial backgrounds, I am part Romanian--specifically Transylvanian (Gypsy). This is a people which has been repeatedly victimized by the idea of collective guilt or taint. The hair stood up on the back of my neck when reading recent reports of Albanians blaming Gypsies for siding with the Serbs against them. While I have no close or conscious ties with this people, I do know what happens to Gypsies when blame is thrown upon them--as an entire people--for anything, from theft to kidnapping, to fortune-telling, to siding with the enemy. They fall through the holes, and disappear. They have been called "The Niggers Of Europe," and that's how they have been treated. Please keep an eye on any references to them, and protest their mistreatment in this situation.)

Donna Barr, Bremerton, WA

Legacy of War

It is time for the American public to awaken not only its political conscience but the deepest source of truth: emotional memory.

How many are there of you who, like me, have held a dying lover in your arms whose death warrant was signed when he fought a people he had never seen in an area crucified by deadly chemicals and defoliants?

War can leave scars that never heal.

Today I am happily married to a man of remarkable stability whose principal battles are with a temperamental supervisor and insulin-dependent diabetes.

In 1990, my boyfriend was a brother motorcyclist who had fought in Vietnam in an area where defoliants were used.

His battle with the Viet Cong was brief.

His battle with terminal cancer lasted fifteen years after the American withdrawal ... so long that doctors were writing articles about him for medical journals, a small comfort on the day he nearly coughed up his guts in my living room, in my arms. And I, all of five feet tall, held upright my 6' 2" 200 lb. lover and helped him regain his breathing as I massaged his muscular body, a body as hard and strong as his Harley Davidson.

Yet, no warrior has outfought metastasized lung cancer forever. His death was a quiet one in his adopted country, where the roads flow like rivers amid towering trees and great birds cry of the greatness of warriors.

Yet, the screaming of his poisoned body continues to cry out, especially as more wives, mothers and sweethearts are doomed to repeat our experience.

I beg the world to hear that cry before another war breaks out with the potential of turning persons, regions, nations and the world into a final charnel sacrifice, possibly a nuclear one, to the megalomaniac ambitions of a self-wounded president and others like him. I beg you in the name of the dead and the memories of the tortured living to turn your bodies, minds and souls into a world-wide Kaddish* for peace.

--Kari Ann Owen, El Sobrante, CA

*Kaddish: Jewish prayer for the dead

Useless Helicopters

Here is a great comeback to all those apologists for the bombing of Yugoslavia who want to list the names of prominent liberal apologists for the bombing. It's by Alexander Cockburn in his June 16 National Notes column:

"Usually, when Elie Wiesel is trundled before the cameras, it's a signal that some spectacular piece of moral fraudulence is about to be foisted onto the American people and the powers-that-be reckon that Wiesel's unctuous stamp of approval is required." That would make a good quote of the week.

One suggestion for you to write about would be those over-hyped Apache helicopters built by Boeing. The Apache received nothing but fawning press-release-style coverage on the cable news channels. All the while the media made it sound like Serb soldiers would start running back to Serbia the moment those dreaded Apaches made their debut in Kosovo. The first time I saw the Apache touted on MSNBC, I guessed that it would take a pistol to shoot one of them down. It turned out that I guessed wrong, after the Apaches weren't even able to fly during simple training exercises. I know you are not publishing as much right now, but that would be a topic that would interest me a lot.

There is a really good web site called fieldofschemes.com by the authors of the book with the same name. It deals with sports stadiums scams across the country. You may want to mention it in a future issue of ETS!

Rick Giombetti, Fort Collins, CO

M.T. replies: It turns out that there were two reasons why the Apaches were never deployed: 1) the pilots and crew had little or no combat training--which is why they spent most of their time in the Balkans doing training exercises--and 2) all of the Apache's protective systems, including its vital radar-jamming equipment, failed so often that, yes, a child with a pistol could have shot them down. But they sure look cool, don't they?