[Peace-discuss] Good letter in today's N-G

[David Green]

I write in response to your editorial, “Another One Bites the Dust,”
published on Jan. 10. You write approvingly of the U.S. strike on Jamal
al-Badawi, “responsible for the deaths of 17 sailors, the wounding of 39
others and the near-sinking in 2000 of the USS Cole,” writing that this
strike in Yemen falls “under the category of getting the job done the right
way.”

Your view, I take it, is that it is acceptable to use lethal force in
foreign territory as a response to violence that results in deaths,
injuries and destruction of state property when institutions in that
territory cannot carry out justice.

On July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian civilian airliner,
Iran Air 655, killing 290 people. Would you write approvingly of Iran’s
IRGC if they were to kill the captain of the Vincennes, William C. Rogers
III, who was not convicted of any crime? I doubt it.

Another case: On Jan. 20, 2017, the Council on Foreign Relations wrote that
“the 542 drone strikes that (Barack) Obama authorized killed an estimated
3,797 people, including 324 civilians.”

Would you approve of the killing of Obama, who not only was not convicted
of any crime but was given an ethics award from UIUC? I doubt it.

Your problem isn’t with violence, but with the violence “they” do. This is
hypocrisy. The News-Gazette doesn’t care about justice and is just another
cheerleader for American state terrorism.

ANDREW SMITH Champaign
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