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Nine years later and we’re still at war

Posted 10/11/10

To the Editor: Joe Stark’s letter (“More Time Needed Before Building Mosque Near 9-11,” Aug. 25-31) demands a hard quick punch back. Mr. Stark! 9-11 happened nine years ago. The problem with …

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Nine years later and we’re still at war

Posted

To the Editor:

Joe Stark’s letter (“More Time Needed Before Building Mosque Near 9-11,” Aug. 25-31) demands a hard quick punch back. Mr. Stark! 9-11 happened nine years ago. The problem with mosques near Ground Zero is not our vivid memories of heroic firefighters. It’s that nine years later we’re still at war. Not only are we fighting Muslims, we’re doing a world class job of making more Muslim enemies every day.

This is Viet Nam on a world stage. Doesn’t it appall you? It does me. Here I am, near the end of a long life, still paying for war.

Now here comes news of the latest Race to the Top “awards” for education. All right, New York made this round. But where’s the federal accounting to those states which missed the boat? Who’s apologizing to the nation as a whole for not funding all 50 states?

According to the American Friends Service Committee, the cost of U.S. wars past and present stands now at 59 percent of our annual budget. Small wonder we can’t afford public education, public health, public anything anymore. Or that we feel compelled to push immigrants, legal or illegal, back to their own lands. Or that one way or another now, drought, floods, fires, disease, global warming and corporate irresponsibility affect every citizen’s security. We’re living scared. When again can we afford peace?

Margaret Weitzmann

Potsdam