Enduring hatreds
AL MARTINEZ equates our campaign for security, stability and democracy in the Middle East to the massacre of a village of Pequot Indians on the order of Massachusetts Gov. John Endicot in 1637 [“History: Doomed to Repeat It, and Repeat It,” April 17]. He opines “that the kinds of hatreds that fuel radical, religious and ethnic wars are still going on. In the 20th century alone, Turks have slaughtered Armenians; Nazis have murdered Jews; Hutus have butchered Tutsis; the Khmer Rouge has slaughtered Cambodians; and Serbs have murdered Muslims. Have I missed any? Probably.”
No “probably” about it, Al! You missed a big one: Saddam Hussein’s ethnic cleansing of Kurds and Shiites after the first Gulf War.
Endicot organized an army to slaughter the Pequots. President George W. Bush didn’t organize an army to slaughter the Sunnis, the Kurds and the Shiites. As of today, unfortunate numbers of them are slaughtering each other -- and they are encouraged to continue their atrocities by the diminishing support given to our president and to our troops.
JOHN A. SAYLOR
Long Beach
*
I truly appreciated Al Martinez’s outstanding article. There are many millions of Americans like him, who have directly experienced the horrors of wars as we did in Korea, where over 1 million lives were lost -- most of them civilians -- in a period of three years, with atrocities committed by both sides.
May your reading public come to the same conclusion Martinez has.
FRANK M. SIFUENTES
Long Beach
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