Letters to the Editor
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‘The Melodrama Over Mrs. Astor Enters a Second, Bitter Act’
Your story on Mrs. Astor today [Joseph Goldstein, New York, July 31, 2006] quotes one source, “I think it’s sort of comical that it’s come to an issue of manners.” Aren’t manners the most important thing in life, rather than the most trivial?
CHRISTOPHER GRAY
Office for Metropolitan History
New York, N.Y.
‘Disproportionate News’
Daniel Johnson’s column that ran on July 20, 2006 on how many journalists in the world press are criticizing what they deem to be a disproportionate use of violence in this latest conflict made me think of a statement that President Reagan made when he urged Americans not to equivocate when it came to the arms race of the late 1980’s. The quote from a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals went something like this “…I urge you to beware the temptation of pride … to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.”
Although obviously meant under different circumstances, the words have not lost their validity. Those on the radical left would have us believe that this is a conflict of two forces that have consistently mismanaged their opportunity to settle their differences amicably. The reality is that in Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah, there is one power that protects the fundamental human rights of speech, dissent and elections, while Hezbollah is a militant organization that has been branded an international terrorist group and one that openly fights for the elimination of not only the Israeli Army, but its nations, elderly, women and children.
So despite what the left would have you believe, Reagan’s words are still prophetic to this day. In today’s unfortunate conflict there is one power that is in the right and one that if successful will do much to make the middle east, Europe and The United States from a radical terrorist group. Instead of criticizing Israel of “using excessive force” lets praise them for having the wherewithal to send their young men and women into harm’s way to secure not only their safety but the worlds.
PEDRO VEGA
Brooklyn, N.Y.
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