LETTERS

Letters from Irish Voice readers

LETTERS

April 2, 2008

Hannity’s Awful War

IT’S so easy for the right wing multi-millionaire human megaphones like Sean Hannity to bellow about how “we’ve got to win the war in Iraq,” and “stay on offense in the war on terror.” (“America According to Hannity,” March 12-18.)

It’s not like Hannity’s two privileged kids will have to risk life, limb and sanity in Iraq, Afghanistan or some other godforsaken hell hole so they can pay for college or get job training. And why should Hannity be worried about the Iraq war draining at least $150 billion per year from our national treasury at a time when our country is sinking into a recession?

As Irish Voice reporter Debbie McGoldrick noted, Republican Party cheerleader Hannity is making at least $5 million a year at his WABC (White Angry Bigots’ Club) radio gig alone, never minds the millions more he’s raking in at the Fox Nuisance Channel.

I’m sure all that bellicose blarney of Hannity’s about victory in Iraq goes over great with the rage-aholic rednecks who attended his periodic pro-war “USA All the Way” pep rallies.

But did Hannity offer any specifics in his Irish Voice interview about the potential human and economic pricetag attached to the so-called “win” in Iraq? Did he even define what exactly winning in Iraq means at this point when the war has reduced so much of that country to such a state of anarchic destitution that more than two million Iraqis have fled to refuge camps in Jordan, Syria and elsewhere?

And why should we have any right to stay another day in Iraq, let alone win anything in Iraq, when it’s been conclusively proven again and again that this disastrous Middle East crusade was based on lies from the start?

No, armchair generals like Hannity, so high on their own hot air, don’t want to get into the grim, bankrupting, bloody realities of America slogging it out in the scorched wasteland of Iraq for years to come with no end in sight but some illusory, pyrrhic victory.

For instance, there is the recent prediction by Iraq’s defense minister that massive numbers of American troops would be needed in Iraq until at least 2018, another 10 years, literally trillions of tax dollars and countless more casualties on both sides.

The scarily gung-ho Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, who’s now apparently Hannity’s man, goes even further, enthusiastically vowing that the U.S. will stick it out for another 100 years in Iraq if that’s what it takes.

Old blood and guts McCain, whom Hannity likes because he “understands the war in Iraq,” was one of those delusional dopes who assured Americans before the war that “we will be welcomed as liberators” by the Iraqis.

Of course, as Hannity himself ruefully notes, some horrible Democrat like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama could take power and put an end to all that mad, macho fun in Iraq by withdrawing troops.

They “want to offer” us Americans all these things that Hannity apparently disdains, like “day care centers,” “health care,” “free college,” etc., rather than spend those hundreds of billions of dollars on more mass death and destruction in Iraq.

Yes, it’s so obvious that rich white guys like Hannity have “the best interests of America at heart,” as McGoldrick so blithely proclaimed, and we benighted “liberals” simply “don’t have a clue.”

Kevin O’Neill
West Babylon, New York

A Violent Utopia

I’M writing in reaction to John Spain’s column last week about the outrageous behavior exhibited in the Dublin area following the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. After reading his column and then hearing of a double homicide outside of my late mother’s village in Co. Kerry, I was shaking my head to see if this is the same Ireland that I have known since I was a child.

It reminded me of one of the most controversial articles ever published in the Irish Voice some 20 years ago that criticized all things American, and buttressed everything wonderful about Ireland.

It was written by an Irishman by the name of Lorcan Roche. His article basically told a story of how Ireland was a Utopia, and the U.S. and New York City in particular was a cesspool to live in, inhabited by ignorant, uneducated people. He boasted about the superior educated Irish and their exceptional school system.

He went on to judge that the U.S. was a place where you couldn’t bring up a child. The backlash from his article caused such a reaction that the famed Irish American New York columnist, Denis Hamill was allowed by the Irish Voice to write a column to counter to his allegations.

I’m just curious what the immigrants who came here in the 1980s and were granted Donnelley visas, and then took them back with them to Ireland because you couldn’t bring up a child here, think of their Utopia now. It’s pretty sad because there are estimated to be anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 undocumented Irish who desperately want to stay here in the U.S. and raise a family. Their own taoiseach doesn’t even seem to care a damn about them!

What happened to your Utopia in the past 20 years, Lorcan? Maybe it’s time for another article on us here in New York City? It might take your mind off of all the crime and violence at home.

Raymond P. McGowan
Bayside, New York

Look to the Future

FORMER presidential aspirant Mike Huckabee is quoted as saying that he might have had a bigger chip on his shoulder if he were the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Senator Barack Obama’s pastor. Yes, if he were a demagogue he probably would have.

Wright is not a slave, nor are the modern day blacks mired in poverty and ignorance who he appeals to.

Let me pose an analogy. My great grandparents lived in Ireland. The English invaded and occupied their country, took their land, enslaved and impoverished the population.

Being only about 10 years older than Wright, do I now have the right to carry a chip? Am I justified in condemning the citizens of England who have nothing to do with the atrocities committed by some of their ancestors?

The answer is no. We Irish shook it off, and got on with our lives.
We looked to the future, not the past. Blacks must do the same.

Richard Doyle
Forest Lake, Minnesota

She’s Unbelievable

SENATOR Hillary Clinton’s two gaffes regarding Bosnia and Northern Ireland illustrate just how far she is willing to go to curry votes in an election that will be decided by authenticity. However, Clinton’s litmus test in authenticity fails miserably.

Ken Maginnis of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), a most influential person in the peace process, was interviewed on the BBC and conveyed to the reporter how “authentic” Clinton’s impact on the peace talks were. He expressed humor in answering the question and said she flew in to Belfast, waved and off she went!

Her Bosnian escapade must be given the same “legitimacy,” and if she thinks the voters are that thick maybe she should do some further research on her target market, because I doubt they believe any of the global claims she makes.

Like a heat guided missile she is pointed toward the White House, but alas, her ambitious rocket fuel is sabotaging her presidential bid.

It will be an Obama/McCain finale. Clinton will have to force herself into retirement in Chappaqua!

Fintan McMurrough
Queens, New York

Share this story: digg this | Add to del.icio.us

Print Save Discussions

Discuss

Email a friend