Bush proves to be strong, inspirational

Howard O. Welch has things backward when he likens Republicans to Jane Fonda (BDN letter, Sept. 29-30). It isn’t Republicans who are holding rallies to protest the Bush administration’s decision to respond militarily to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on America. Republicans aren’t responsible for the unprecedented transfer of nuclear weapons technology to China over the past eight years. Republicans didn’t try to deny thousands of military personnel the right to cast Florida absentee ballots in the 2000 presidential election. Furthermore,, many Republicans in Congress expressed great concern over imminent threats to our national security well before Sept. 11.

Welch complains that nearly the entire nation is supporting George W. Bush while Bill Clinton failed to unify our country and to lead the military. It really isn’t that hard to understand. Clinton lost his credibility and moral authority. It’s impossible to alienate half of the people in America and still effectively lead the nation. For Republicans to have sought to hold Clinton accountable for his actions, which have greatly diminished the office of the presidency, is not unpatriotic. And does Welch really think that Clinton represented an image that we all should have been inspired by, particularly in times of national crisis, when things like sacrifice, courage and unselfishness suddenly become very important? I don’t think so.

Joe Lieberman tried, during the presidential debates, to mischaracterize Dick Cheney’s position on the military. In much the same way, Welch is trying to distort the position of Republicans to say that we are ridiculing the military. Nothing could be further from the truth. But our military shouldn’t be asked to do more and more with less and less. Military people shouldn’t be living on food stamps. Their

survival in combat shouldn’t be jeopardized because of policy decisions which are driven by political correctness. Or by our nation’s failure to keep our nuclear secrets out of the hands of our enemies.

It’s not hard to figure out why Americans have united behind Bush during this time of national emergency. The president has removed any doubt from the minds of reasonable people that he’s a strong and inspirational leader of great integrity who has surrounded himself with experienced and capable professionals.

The vocal minority who continue to desperately hang onto this media-generated notion of Bush (as presented in the editorial cartoon in the Sept. 14 BDN) as a spoiled and overgrown kid who simply inherited the presidency, reveal themselves to be sadly deficient in fairness and intellectual honesty. Fortunately, most people are beginning to realize that the caricature of Bush which his detractors have created is nothing less than absurd.

In fact, polls indicate that 90 percent of Americans support Bush and his response to the terrorist threat which just brought a fiery end to the earthly lives of nearly 7,000 people and seeks to destroy our civilization. Many Democrats and Republicans agree with the president’s assessment that our military needs to find the people that want to take America down and put them out of business before they can strike again.

For our nation to oppose evil

people doesn’t make us racists or hate-mongers, like some have suggested. And it certainly doesn’t make us terrorists either. We have far more concern for the civilians in Afghanistan than their own government, as evidenced by the fact that our nation has been supplying the population there with humanitarian aid for some time.

Can you imagine the response of Russia or China to a similar terrorist attack on their country? I can tell you that retaliation would probably take all of five minutes and there’s a decent chance that it would be nuclear. And there wouldn’t be any great concern about distinguishing between military and civilian targets. I think our nation has shown an enormous amount of restraint under the circumstances. But we now know that the possible future acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by those that seek to put an end to America, could make the horrifying catastrophe of Sept. 11 seem like a minor inconvenience. We must not allow that to happen.

David D. Wilson is a resident of Levant.