Editor, Daily Nexus,

I found Joey Tartakovsky’s column, “The Ruthlessness of Terrorism” (Daily Nexus, May 3), to be stunningly hypocritical because of his previously stated support for the war in Iraq. Joey argues that negotiation and diplomacy are always viable alternatives to violence as a means for political ends. Isn’t it ironic then that America’s pretext for initiating unprovoked war on Iraq was that our attempts at negotiation and diplomacy were fruitless? Iraq had done nothing to us. We now know that it posed little threat to us and had zero connection whatsoever to 9/11. Yet we initiated an immense bombing campaign on the country that has killed more civilians thus far than were killed in 9/11.

Now we are seeing pictures of American soldiers raping and torturing Iraqi civilians. We are learning that this treatment of Iraqis is not isolated, but widespread. Meanwhile, the civilian death toll mounts as we continue to fight so-called “Saddam loyalists,” a growing civilian population that opposes our illegal occupation of their country. We are not fighting Saddam anymore but the Iraqi people themselves. We are killing them, and we are destroying their country. Tell me Joey, is this not terrorism?

Most disturbingly, what America is doing could be argued as being worse than terrorism because Iraqis do not oppress the American citizens. America is on the offensive. America is the one doing the oppressing, and the Iraqis are the ones with no means of diplomacy or negotiation. Their only say in the political arena is through fighting back against the invading U.S. army. We may call it terrorism, but they call it national defense.

I was wondering how on earth could Joey reconcile America’s actions with his own views on terrorism. Then, amazingly, in the last paragraph of his article I found the answer! There, he says that those who sympathize with one terrorist organization should “at least be consistent about it,” and should sympathize with the bombers in a whole long list of countries. I wholeheartedly agree with you Joey, and well, since you sympathize with America, I think you should add it to your list.