Thank Star Tribune for its excellent editorial today!

katinmn

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Mon May-30-05 08:56 PM
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Thank Star Tribune for its excellent editorial today!

I'm really proud of the Strib.

From the Rapid Response Network - MN:

This editorial (http://www.startribune.com/stories/561/5427823.html) is truthful, brave, and will immediately draw harsh reaction from the GOP's letter writers. (I added excerpts at the bottom of the post.)

Send the StarTribune letters letting them know that you are proud of them for writing what they did today: opinion@startribune.com

Some things to consider saying (use maybe one or two of them, so your letters stay short):

-- Their stance, in terms of bravery, is up there with Joseph Welch telling the crazed and all-powerful witchhunting Senator McCarthy "Have you no sense of decency?" (http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Have_you_no_sense_of_decency.htm)

-- Most Americans (57%) now think that invading Iraq wasn't worth it (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000938522), yet only the StarTribune of all the daily papers has the courage to acknowledge what most of us are thinking -- the other papers are too cowed by Bush and his right-wing media allies, such as Rush Limbaugh and the conservative bloggers like PowerLine.

-- More information has come to light showing more Bush lies on this subject. The London Times of May 29 ran an article that showed that, contrary to Bush's 2002 assertions that he really wasn't planning to invade Iraq, he and Tony Blair had ordered US and RAF planes to step up their bombing of Iraq in order to provoke Saddam into attacking them, which would then give them the excuse they sought to start a full-blown war against him.(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1632566,00.html)

Thanks a lot, everyone!

Editorial: Memorial Day/Praise bravery, seek forgiveness
May 30, 2005 ED0530

Nothing young Americans can do in life is more honorable than offering themselves for the defense of their nation. It requires great selflessness and sacrifice, and quite possibly the forfeiture of life itself. On Memorial Day 2005, we gather to remember all those who gave us that ultimate gift. Because they are so fresh in our minds, those who have died in Iraq make a special claim on our thoughts and our prayers.

In exchange for our uniformed young people's willingness to offer the gift of their lives, civilian Americans owe them something important: It is our duty to ensure that they never are called to make that sacrifice unless it is truly necessary for the security of the country. In the case of Iraq, the American public has failed them; we did not prevent the Bush administration from spending their blood in an unnecessary war based on contrived concerns about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. President Bush and those around him lied, and the rest of us let them. Harsh? Yes. True? Also yes. Perhaps it happened because Americans, understandably, don't expect untruths from those in power. But that works better as an explanation than as an excuse.

The "smoking gun," as some call it, surfaced on May 1 in the London Times. It is a highly classified document containing the minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting at 10 Downing Street in which Sir Richard Dearlove, head of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair on talks he'd just held in Washington. His mission was to determine the Bush administration's intentions toward Iraq.

-snip-
As this bloody month of car bombs and American deaths -- the most since January -- comes to a close, as we gather in groups small and large to honor our war dead, let us all sing of their bravery and sacrifice. But let us also ask their forgiveness for sending them to a war that should never have happened. In the 1960s it was Vietnam. Today it is Iraq. Let us resolve to never, ever make this mistake again. Our young people are simply too precious.