If my biography were ever to be written, my dear friend, Ray Strait, is the guy I'd want to write it, as he has so many others. Just check Amazon.com. Ray, when he feels strongly about something, doesn't hesitate to speak his mind, pick up the phone, or send an email. With his permission (thank you, Ray), here's what's on his mind now:
It is an old American right to criticize the government. That's how this great nation became a nation in the first place. A real patriot cares enough about his country to speak out loud and clear when he or she believes our leaders are leading us in the wrong direction. Yet, the current administration - aided and abetted by the talking heads in both the print and television media, who babble day and night just to hear their heads rattle, are quick to condemn us as un-American if we exercise our Constitutional right to take issue with the government.
The president says, "Let's fight the terrorists in Iraq so we won't have to fight them here."
I'm sure Tony Blair said the same thing before the post Fourth of July fireworks in London that killed at least 50 and injured several hundred. Suddenly the Secretary of Homeland Security declares a "yellow" alert. What's the use of an alert after the deed is done? Why isn't this country more pro-active with our security?
We love declaring wars, most of which we don't win. Learning nothing from the French defeat in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu, we went to war against North Vietnam - and barely escaped with our tail feathers after 58,000 good and decent American youngsters were slaughtered. Vietnam did not destroy Communism in Southeast Asia.
And there are the domestic wars we continue to lose. A war on poverty , a war on drugs, a war on gangs. What a joke. If we can't conquer gangs on the streets that are daily patrolled by fine police departments, how does the president think we will win a war on terrorists who are spread throughout the world?
The attack on Afghanistan seems pretty well justified, as far as it went because the 9/11 terrorists were trained there. We seem to have ignored the fact almost all of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudis who practically walked across the border from Canada while we fitzed and futzed about protecting our border with Mexico from immigrant workers. Then we went after Iraq (a country we had so tied up in knots it couldn't move without our permission) where we are bogged down with daily American casualties. We can't pursue Osama Bin Laden because he's probably hiding out in the northwest mounts of Pakistan where we can't pursue him because Musharraf, the dictatorial president will not allow it. Incidentally, Pakistan is our "friend."
The president says we'll get them where they live. Now any good old boy from Texas knows that if you poke a stick into a hornet's nest you're gonna be in plenty of trouble. Maybe his Kennebunkport upbringing left him lacking in Texas logic.
Are we now copycatting the Soviet Union? Remember one thing. War did not bring down the Soviet Empire - we drove them into bankruptcy due to their military expenditures. We are now asked to pay more taxes to support more homeland security. Who is more secure, us or the terrorists?
As a veteran of World War II who served in the South Pacific's 20th Air Force on Tinian, and as an air traffic controller in the Berlin Airlift, I feel I have a patriotic duty to criticize my country when it goes off the deep end. I am sure there are many veterans who agree with me. I have lived more than three quarters of the 20th Century and working hard to stay around during the 21st. In that time I feel I've learned a couple of interesting lessons.
My grandmother used to say, "Pick your fights carefully because the other guy might hit back." How right she was.
Ray Strait
Hemet, California
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