DU VETS: How would you respond to this LTE?

I just read this LTE posted on the website of my hometown newspaper at http://www.portsmouth-dailytimes.com/opinion/letters.cfm

Reader supports Patriot Act
Sean Daniel Brogden, Wheelersburg,

This letter is in response to Trent Oliver’s letter printed in the July 14 edition of the Portsmouth Daily Times.

Mr. Oliver you could not be more wrong. Obviously you have swallowed whole the often repeated misinformation that the ACLU and other liberal organizations have asserted. I guess it is true that if you tell a big enough lie enough times people will believe it.

The Patriot Act allows law enforcement, when approved by senior Justice Department officials, to seek a court order, an order that must be approved by a duly appointed judge, authorizing them to secretly capture electronic conversations or library/Internet usage logs. Those court orders come with complete instructions describing the scope and duration of the conversations that may be seized. The court notifies the person or persons whose conversations have been seized after the order has expired, which only makes common sense. If you were a terrorist and the government told you beforehand that they were going to record your conversations for the next month, I would bet you wouldn’t conduct your dastardly business the same way. The object here is to catch the terrorist before they strike.

MORE ...

You can read the letter in its entirety, which is signed by a retired Navy man. Frankly, not being a vet myself, I always feel a bit intimidated when someone signs an LTE noting their military service, as if I'm unqualified to respond in kind.

I'm wondering, however, how some of you vets out there might respond to this, especially this portion:

Our brave men and women are fighting in Iraq for many reasons: to secure peace in that vital area of the world, to combat terrorists where they live instead of New York or Chicago and to rid the world of a dangerous and genocidal maniac like Saddam Hussein. To denigrate their sacrifice by whining about criminal’s and terrorist’s “rights” is despicable."

Sometimes I feel discouraged by such letters, too much so to muster a response.

The Patriot Act opens a pandora's box where your right to privacy, and your constitutional right against search and seizure are both violated based on mere suspicion.

Not to mention the fact that the law is deliberately vague. The section he describes, on "delaying the execution of a warrant," does not specify anything except "suspicion of illegal activity" as the basis for it.

There is no distinction as to citizenship or visitors, terrorism or drugs...it could be applied to anyone for any reason.

No, for the same reasons we don't now. We don't trust that govt. to safeguard our rights.

Our brave men and women are fighting in Iraq for many reasons: to secure peace in that vital area of the world, to combat terrorists where they live instead of New York or Chicago and to rid the world of a dangerous and genocidal maniac like Saddam Hussein. To denigrate their sacrifice by whining about criminal’s and terrorist’s “rights” is despicable

Dear Chief -

As a two-tour Viet Nam vet, I must disagreed with your premis of why we're fighting in Iraq. We did not invade and occupy Iraq for a noble cause; it's all about oil, corporate profits, and personal grudges.

There are 58, 264 names carved in black granite on The Wall because of the lie that was Viet Nam. Fourty years later, we still see the effects of that lie. As you read this, one thousand, seven hundred and one men and women have lost their lives based on a lie.

To quote George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Have we learned nothing? Another generation of our youth is being sacrificed for what?

I suggest you consider adding the Vietnamese dead too ."Vietnamese dead were estimated at more than 400,000, and Viet Cong and North Vietnamese at over 900,000"- Infopedia.

IIRC, there was a thread on DU within the last few days that there are an estimated 300,000 missing and unaccounted for Vietnamese.

I also forgot to point out that the reason the Chief and I were in uniform was to protect the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Taking away a person's civil liberties seems to be an enemy action from where I sit.

it means giving up their freedom. Don't question.

US Army 1978-1991
Operation Desert Storm

The men and women of the US military are being used as cannon fodder,
they were sent to take out WMD's, and when none were found the reason was changed to bringing down the regime, and then they threw in the democracy excuse.

Let's look at the reasons:
1- To secure peace in that vital area of the world.

First, with the exception of the Israeli/Palestinian situation there was peace of a sorts, unless you count the US/UK bombing of Iraq since 1991. So it wasn't Iraq that was doing the attacking it was the US/UK.

2- To combat terrorists where they live...

Well even the US military can't do that, we know that there are terrorists all over the world, especially in places where the US has none or little military presence. And the attacks are getting more numerous, which means the plan just ain't working.

3- To rid the world of a dangerous and genocidal maniac like Saddam
Hussein.

Now I agree Saddam was dangerous, but only to his own people, not to the world. So while we take down Saddam we partner up with Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan, who has reportedly boiled some people alive. He also has extended his rule by referendum, starting in 1995, and was re-elected in 2000. The US even said that the election was neither fair nor free. In 2002 he won another referendum to extend the length of the presidential terms from five
to seven years. His term is suppposed to end this year, but parliment has extended that until December 2007. The UN has found that torture in Uzbekistan "institutionalized, systematic, and rampant."

In my opinion the US military is doing nothing good in Iraq, except dying for a spoiled little yellow coward and his business cronies who see money to be made in the blood of men and women who were sold the Brooklyn Bridge. The worst part is that they actually believe what they were told.

As for rights, that's what they are supposed to fight for, the right of all to get equal justice, whether they agree with their actions or not.

There's a start.

I'm going to mull over these suggestions and perhaps by this weekend I'll feel more determined to muster a response to this LTTE.