Blame U.S. first

Dear Editor,

Mr. Hendricks your liberal slip is showing ("A classic culture clash," Mike at Night, June 26-27 edition).

I suspect that if I were to check your wallet I would find your "Blame America First" membership card. For you to equate the views and goals of the Muslim extremist terrorists with the views and goals of the entire Iraq people is ludicrous.

In your view the terrorists are the rightful governing party of Iraq. You are correct that the Iraqis have used beheadings for centuries.

However, the people they executed were convicted of crimes against their laws, religious or otherwise. Not innocent people who have been abducted under the cover of night and are threatened with their lives to extort action from a third party.

America uses capital punishment for crimes against our laws, religious or otherwise, much the same as traditional Iraqi law. In your view this is uncivilized, wrong, cruel, barbaric and somehow President Bush's fault because he is from Texas.

Which is it? Not OK when we do it. OK when terrorists do it. You can't have it both ways.

You said the Iraqi's "norms, values, and religion is diametrically opposite to our own." I don't think any Iraqi is opposed to choosing his or her own religion, their own way of life, or their leadership structure.

For the most part, their religion mirrors our own. A belief in God, obeying His laws, treating other as you would be treated and punishment for transgressors.

A small number of radical extremists have hijacked it to forward their own "world view."

In the end it's not about religion, it's about control. In the theocracy in Iran many people lead two lives. The "public life" adheres to the strict religious laws that are brutally enforced.

The "private life" is surprisingly like our own, western dress, electronics, treating wives and daughters with respect. That is the reason many send their children to America and Europe for college educations. Your view that many countries in the Mideast reject freedom is wrong. They reject the decadence that the liberal left has allowed under the guise of "Freedom."

America has fought many wars for the "idea" of freedom. We have stood in the face of tyranny and paid a heavy price because it was the right thing to do. In the end, if you don't think that the idea of "freedom" is worth fighting for then I guess your only alternative is surrender.

J.A. Walker

Farmington, N.M.