Drs. John & Karen Dwyer Pax Submitted by dwyerj1 on October 5, 2007 - 5:24pm. Drs. John & Karen Dwyer Pax Christi Naples Dear Mr. Govela (member for 8 hours): The planet we live on may, indeed, be different than the one you think you do. Ours is uninfluenced by the spirit of Rupert Murdoch's selected and refined versions of "reality." Let me speak for myself. The Spirit that Matthew articulates especially in his version of the Sermon on the Mount pervades my planet. I simply do not believe that Iran is a "state-sponsor of world terrorism." For example, the blaming of Iranians for manufacturing, selling, and supplying "insurgents" with IEDs that kill our troops in their Humvees seems to me to be wholly specious. Our troops have 50mm turret guns mounted on their Humvees. They have Abrams tanks from Lima, OH; they have F-14's from Martin-Lockheed; they have cluster bombs and napalm and satellite-guided smart bombs. What's an IED in comparison? Or what's an RPG in comparison? The most sophisticated and highly-trained army in history attacks Iraq--a country with no air force, no army, no weapons industry, nothing but AK-47's! Is there a bit of a disparity between the official version of reality and what I see? The mantra of saying that President Ahmadinejad believes in "wiping Israel off the map" has been debunked everywhere except in Rupert Murdoch-owned media. Freedom of speech? Think of Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu's withdrawn invitation to speak next spring about peace and peacemaking at the University of St. Thomas. St. Thomas leaders chose not to bring Tutu to campus after hearing concerns about "hurtful" comments he's made about Israel that might offend local Jews, a university official confirmed Wednesday. St. Thomas, reported on Wednesday in the Minneapolis weekly newspaper City Pages saying that a professor was stripped of her leadership post at St. Thomas' Justice and Peace Studies Program for the way she challenged the administration's decision which was based on a 2002 speech Tutu made in Boston that was pointedly critical of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, including a passage where he referred to a "powerful" Jewish lobby in the U.S., which she said invoked a stereotype of Jewish power, and another where he asked aloud if Jews had forgotten that God cares about the downtrodden. I am embarrassed that Professor Bollinger was a bad host. He poisoned the well with name-calling and character assassination. The president of Columbia squandered the school's prestige by voicing the political prejudices almost certainly foisted upon him by Washington. What atrocities? Just one example from the wholly unjustified attack on a sovereign nation: the vindictive attack on and leveling of the entire city of Fallujia, site of Hila and the hanging gardens of Babylon and the Ziggurats, in retribution for the killing and desecration of four Blackwater mercenaries. The internationally condemned cluster bombs and phosphorus bombs still smolder there where our troops surrounded the city with razor wire and refused to allow its citizens to escape before the attack. Look at http://www.albasrah.net/index.php if you have any doubts about how our forces have committed crimes against humanity in Iraq. Young American heroes? Sending ill-educated American youths, the new barbarians brought up on paint-ball exercises, into the cradle of a civilization they know absolutely nothing about and consequently are unable to value artifacts over 6,000 years old to depose and kill President Saddham is also a crime against humanity. Murdoch media, retained by Mr. Bush, claimed Saddham's brutality, attacks on Kurds over 20 years in the past and misogyny. None are valid reasons for an invasion and occupation by the United States. Nothing justifies the travesty of Saddham's trial and execution. The tiny states of Syria and Iran have every right to aid their neighboring state to repel the invasion and occupation by the vastly superior super power bent on an irreligious crusade to destroy a chimera. Hating America? You don't really want to know about and certainly didn't listen to us when we did protest the United States-sponsored attacks on the Kurds and Kuwait--any more than you did when we protested the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. We marched in the streets and protested against the specious "thousand points of light" as well. If you look at the suicide bombers in Israel as a crude effort to stop a nuclear bomb-equipped air force of F-14s and Apache attack helicopters, an Abrams-tank equipped army from its unjust expansion beyond legitimate boundaries, then the horror is considerably attenuated. It's kids throwing rocks at tanks. I'm not an America-hater nor am I ashamed to count myself a member of the War Resisters League since 1962 when I decided to leave the Air Force Academy. I'm wholly opposed to the obscene horror of the United States spending $2 billion _per day_ on the war in Iraq. I align myself with the pacifist traditions of the Maryknolls, the Benedictines, and the great saints of the past who stood for mercy, forgiveness, hope, charity, faith, justice, temperance, prudence, and fortitude. We cannot make our enemies our friends by killing them.