Letter to the Rutalnd VT Herald--- 'Nuff said

Sirs,> The Herald is a liberal newspaper, and nowadays most liberals will support any Fascist dictator, so long> as he claims to be a Socialist, and rules a ThirdWorld country. This truth was brought home to me by the Danziger editorial cartoon of Friday August 4, whose depiction ofIsrael's army is indistinguishable from those broadcast by Hizbollah: a demonic giant, labeled "IDF" (Hey Danziger! you forgot the Star of David!!) hammers down on ant- like creatures, who scamper among blazing buildings and loose off tiny, ineffectual rockets as they burn. Danziger's cartoon appeared on a day when approximately 200 rockets of iranian manufacture slammed into residential areas of Northern Israel. In Lebanon, Israel is fighting a war to the deathwithIran, whose Fascist leader calls almost daily for > the annihilation of the Jewish state. I cannotsupport a newspaper whose major editorial spokesmanechoesand disseminates his propaganda. Please cancel my Herald subscription, as of today. David gutmannn, Ph.D.==================Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 14:30:14 -0400Dear Mr. Gutmann:I am including the editorials the Herald has writtenon the conflict betweenIsrael and Hezbollah in Lebanon. I wish to be clear that I did not write them, so I am not putting my own work forward, butthat of my staff. I believe we have done a fine job of expressing concerns similar to yoursabout Iran, over and over. Jeff Danziger is an editorial cartoonist, and his job is to in a single image capture what is happening around us and, where appropriate, comment on it. The cartoon in question represents the"disproportionate use of force" noted by many people, including the British, French,Russian, Greek andEuropean Union governments, the United Nations and thepope, among others.The cartoon is a forceful one, and we had a newsroom discussion, prompted by a staff member who is Jewish, about whether the hat on the figure too closely resembled a Gestapo uniform. However, we did decide that it was a fair comment on how the war is perceived and so chose to run it.I do not handle subscription requests. If you still wish to cancel yourpaper, you will need to contact our Subscription Department. I hope that, given this evidence, you will reconsider and if you wish to contact me directly, my contact information is at the bottom ofthis email. I apologizethat it is rather lengthy, but we have writtenextensively about the subjectin the past three weeks.
Sincerely,Randal Smathers,=======================

Mr. Smathers,Thanks for your reply. It is courteous and intelligent- but wrong. Your characterization of Israel'sresponse to repeated Hizbollah rocket attacks as"disproportionate," gives me another reason to cancel my Herald subscription. A bit of a double standard here. When the USN PacificFleet was sunk at Pearl Harbor we did not - while calling for immediate negotiations - limit ourselves to a proportionate tit-for-tat bombing of a Japanese naval base in say, the Mariannas, . Hardly: As new ships came online they were tasked with destroying the entire Japanese Navy and merchant fleet, along with all their berthing, repair and supply facilities. Meanwhile, theUSAF torched their major cities into bamboo ash. Hardly a proportionate response, but finally a supremely effective one: It not only brought a definitive end to World War II in the Pacific, but regime change as well. Free of an oppressive military caste, the Japanese have willingly adopted Democracy, have created a world-class economy, and have shown that their creativity is not limited to the design of kimonos.Total, DISproportionate war has led to total peace, to benign relations lasting over 60 years.There is a clear paradox of war: The more vicious, disproportionate and decisive the final battle, the more reliable the peace. The survivors of an indecisive “proportionate” battle, their formations battered, but their fantasies of victory still intact- are soon ready to try the game again. That scenario has been playing out between Jews and Arabs for over a hundred years: the Arabs go on the attack, the Israelis begin beating them, but before they can decisively crush the Arab armies, all the WesternNanny-States come bustling in to impose a cease fireand save the Arab’s ass. And then the ‘peacekeepers”are puzzled that their nice truce does not lead to apermanent peace. War, sir, ain't beanbag; and the Middle East ain’t sweet, Edenic Vermont. There, the road to peace leads through total war. “ALL WE ARE SAYIN’: IS GIVE WAR A CHANCE"Sincerely,David Gutmann, Ph.D