ALIEN NATION

Sheldon Teitelbaum’s piece “Over There” (Palm Latitudes, Feb. 9) was arrogant and insulting. If the purpose was to criticize the movie “JFK,” why did the author need to ridicule an entire nation, Yugoslavia, even as it experiences a civil war?

According to the writer, terrible wars usually start in small countries where people are so primitive that they love making up abstract enemies who plot against them. Does Teitelbaum consider the fighting in World War I and II as only a bad movie? Were they dreaming about an imaginary enemy then?

I spent 25 years in Belgrade, and I know that people in Yugoslavia could care less about Elvis or “alien sightings.” Publishing companies don’t bother to print tabloids in Yugoslavia; nobody would buy them.

DIANA ENGELMANN

Pacific Palisades