Correspondence
To the Editors No rightwinger, He! Growing understanding and sensitivity have led many people to become more accepting of racial minorities, those with handicaps, and others too long ignored...
...Put him on the Web I have a suggestion about Robert Ostermann's article ["A Soldier's Legacy"] in the issue of December 5. Why not post the article on your website...
...Please cancel my subscription immediately...
...It was heartening to see this trend extended in the cartoon on page 24 of your December 5, 1997 issue: It shows God as a left-hander...
...Finally, may we suggest that as a new arrival to these shores, Father Deane listen to a bit more of the national discussion on Iraq--the war, the sanctions, and Hussein--before jumping to conclusions...
...Moraga, Calif...
...No such compunction appears in your editorial...
...From the editors: It shall be done...
...Moreover, statements by Clinton and Albright have not been as one-dimensional as Deane suggests, but often contradictory and ambiguous...
...But at this time we continue to find sanctions preferable to either taking military action against Iraq or allowing Saddam Hussein to declare himself free of the weapons the UN team thinks he is hiding...
...Nationalism lives Did Rush Limbaugh write your editorial on the Iraqi crisis [December 5, 1997...
...Evidently, the ugly American is alive and well in the editorial room of Commonweal...
...A college's mission Writing about Saint Mary-of-theWoods College, among others (Continued on page 28) Commonweal 4 January 16,1998...
...The writer is editor of the Evangelist, newspaper of the Albany diocese...
...The recent crisis was not instigated by the United States, but by Hussein's expulsion of the UN weapons inspectors and by his continuing unwillingness to abide by the UN's resolutions concerning the destruction of his nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons...
...MATT PERETIN Blue Bell, Pa...
...It makes good reading for leaders of soldiers (from commander-in-chief to sergeant) and, for that matter, for the rest of us...
...The effect of the sanctions on the Iraqi people raises a true moral quandary...
...You have conveniently forgotten that the current crisis was inspired by two speeches, one by Bill Clinton and one by Madeleine Albright, stating that regardless of how faithfully Iraq were to abide by UN resolutions, the sanctions would remain as long as Saddam Hussein stayed in power...
...It is our impression that Iraq's compliance with UN resolutions, not the removal of Saddam Hussein, would result in the lifting of economic sanctions--that, at least, is the position we support...
...Since arriving in the United States, I have been astounded at the degree to which American Christians, be they left or right or middle of the road, are willing to let nationalistic passions of the crudest kind, rather than gospel values, govern their view of world affairs...
...As a lifelong member of the left-handed minority, I was delighted by this recognition that the Creator is a southpaw...
...Reading Commonweal is one way to do that...
...So are, among others, Pat Buchanan and John McLaughlin, who set aside their customary jingoism at the sight of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children dead because of the sanctions...
...Isolationism and indifference are alive and well in the United States...
...DECLAN DEANE, S.J...
...Sorry, he is much more moderate...
...You uncritically accept the State Department line on the sanctions, that they are motivated solely by Saddam's "determination to reconstitute his military machine...
...Growing understanding and sensitivity have led many people to become more accepting of racial minorities, those with handicaps, and others too long ignored or ridiculed...
...JAMES BREIG Albany, N.Y...
...Deane's reading of the facts does not square with ours...
...We think preventing a known mass-murderer from once again acquiring and using weapons of mass destruction has something to do with gospel values...
...both have used the word "genocide" to describe what the U.S.inspired sanctions are doing to the Iraqi people...
...Deane also needs to be reminded that until recently Hussein has refused to accept greater humanitarian relief for the Iraqi people...
...In other words, the lives of Iraqi civilians are of less consequence than the perceived self-interest of the United States...
...For millennia, left-handedness has been connected with Satan, evil, and exclusion from polite society (see the etymology of such words as "sinister" and "gauche...
...The editors reply: Rather than being drive by crude nationalistic passions, the American people--including those Father Deane cites--give little evidence of caring deeply about Iraq...
...That's how diplomacy works...
Vol. 125 • January 1998 • No. 1
