Letters to the Editor
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What a tool...
While I'm sorry Mr. Kamiya had to endure the pain and unforgiving nature of cancer, and can appreciate his desire to turn his misfortune into an excellent allegory for the current state of US-foreign relations, he is completely off-base. His doctor didn't start hurling pious lectures at his prostate because it got cancer. He is right, anti-Americanism is a cancer, but it was not caused by the war in Iraq, it was caused by fanatic Islamic terrorists. Perhaps Bush's somtimes horribly mismanaged and arguably misguided military and foreign policies can be likened to a bad round of chemotherapy that burns your insides, leaves you weak and sick, making you wonder if this is any better than the sickness itself. Scorched earth if you will. But don't pile on the hate of another race onto one man.
And don't mock the the seriousness of an attack on American soil (9/11) by describing the state of the world's hate for America as "Stage 1" cancer prior to the war in Iraq. In case you've forgotten we were attacked, thousands of innocent Americans were killed. This was not some mole you get removed from your ass cheek, Gary. Spare me the line that you were against this from the beginning, because you weren't. No one was, except for those who had nothing to contribute in the first place. And had you anything to contribute you would have, either out of liberal guilt or a sense of duty and obligation, or even out of weak-willed pandering (see Congress).
You also seem to forget that Bush's erred "surgical precision" of military forces removed a cancer itself, Saddam Hussein, a man who had no regard for human rights, personal freedoms, or the respect and regard for human life. You really want to compare pre- and post-Iraq war. Sure, pull those Times pieces out about electricity, water, even waste removal. Yeah, things are a little less than pleasant. Sorry the war couldn't accommodate the quality of life your American ass feels entitled to. But lets forget about that for a moment. Let's talk about the loss of life by the war. Nearly four thousand US soldiers, a handful of coalition forces, a thousand contractors, and approximately one hundred thousand Iraqis. Is it costly? No doubt. Painful? Yes. Worth it? My God, I hope so.
But then let's take a look at pre-Iraq war. The killing fields in Anbar, where Saddam used chemical weapons against his own people, the mass murders in the Kurdish north, these were better times? What about the aggressive stance towards a pro-democarcy Lebanon, attacks on Kuwait, or paying homages to the families of Palestinian terrorists?
No one said treatment would be painless, or that it would even work. But you did it anyway. Why? Becasue a life with the disease, if you would even live at all, wasn't going to be worth living. Because you don't surrender your life to anything but your dreams. Because sometimes, even when it doesn't work, when you don't get the cure, it's still worth it. It says something about you and the people around you, that you will battle on against the injustice of the disease and for the life it steals.
Life must be simple for you, Gary, knowing all. Let us know the next time the doctor wants to leave the cancer and not go after it, thoughtfully, aggressively, and responsibly. I'll pass on the number for my oncologist.