Cheryl Ede's letters to the editor
All but one of the letters below have been published. For subscribers to the San Diego Union Tribune, you can find these articles free of charge by going to Sign On San Diego, logging in as a subscriber, clicking on archives, and providing key words to access the letters below:
June 11, 2003
Dear Letters Editor:
Does anyone believe, after witnessing our "shock and awe" military in Iraq, that automatic assault weapons or any weapons are going to save us from a U.S. government turned tyrannical? Did anyone else who watched the precision and lethality of the U.S. military during the war have the notion that this could be used against us?
Perhaps this strange and unanticipated thought was evoked because of the chill I experienced watching U.S. marshals, at the behest of the Supreme Court, stop the counting of ballots in Florida. This chill gave a glimmer of the helplessness many people in parts of the world must experience when faced with overwhelming and unmatchable power. It was one thing (for me) to remember seeing pictures of the use of military force to ensure African-American students could go to school in Little Rock, Ark., during an earlier time, and quite another to watch on television as U.S. marshals seized ballot boxes.
The only thing that will protect U.S. citizens from a tyrannical government is an informed populace that is involved in the political process and demands from elected representatives that they look after the interests of our country and its citizens. From where I stand, the outlook is not hopeful. Our elected officials, of both parties, seem too beholden to those with money to support their campaigns to remain in office.
My solution? Some sort of public financing of campaigns so those running for office would know they could get their message out.
CHERYL EDE San Diego
Unpublished letter to Robert Caldwell of the San Diego Union Tribune
March 3, 2004
Mr. Robert Caldwell
Editor, Insight Opinion and Commentary
San Diego Union-Tribune
350 Camino de la Reina
San Diego, CA 92108-3090
Dear Mr. Caldwell:
This letter was prompted by your commentary on John Kerry in the February 22, 2004 San Diego Union-Tribune. The purpose is to request that you review President Bush’s military record with the same diligence you reviewed Senator’s Kerry’s military record.
A core problem in our country, and one reason for a polarized nation, is too many of us put loyalty to our political parties before and above the interests of the country. In response to questions and publicity about President Bush’s military record, or lack thereof, the San Diego Union Tribune editorial board dubbed the pursuit of the truth as a “political smear campaign.” Your subsequent commentary on Senator Kerry’s military record suggests you operate on the principle that the best defense is a good offense. President Bush’s military record is highly relevant to current events and the upcoming election. If he did not honor his legal/military obligation, if he permitted his records to be purged so he would look better, his character is questionable and the public has the right to know. President Bush’s more recent statements which intimated the U.S. was in danger of a chemical, biological or nuclear attack from Saddam Hussein if we did not preemptively attack Iraq were incorrect. If President Bush’s veracity is not worth investigating, I do not know what is.
The Iraq War and President Bush’s military record are not the only issues that concern me. Following are issues which bring me distress and hope he will be defeated handily in the next election:
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Stem-cell research—I am for scientists following their profession’s ethical guidelines in their pursuit of treatments and cures for any and all diseases. I think people all over the world would benefit. |
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Women’s rights—I am in favor of women (in conjunction with their doctors and families), rather than the government, making and being responsible for personal decisions regarding their bodies and lives. |
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Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—my idea of God is that He would be pleased if humans left some parts of His creation as He created it. Just because humans can alter the earth and can determine which animals survive does not mean we should. I am alarmed when I read Associated Press articles on the various groups of scientists who have sent letters of protest to President Bush for everything from leaving out scientific evidence in official reports that is at loggerheads with his agenda to the degrading air and water quality during his tenure. Steven Breen’s February 12, 2004 political cartoon captioned “BUSH AWOL FROM ENVIRONMENTAL GUARD DUTY” expressed my view. It also evoked sadness and helplessness that powerful individuals, such as President Bush, pursue oil to grease the wheels of “progress” and military might. This pursuit takes precedence over all, and is the opposite of what I consider progress. |
These are my primary objections to President Bush and his administration, along with my objection to preemptive war as a legitimate policy for the U.S. to follow and promote, by example, to the world.
In your commentary, you evaluated and analyzed Senator Kerry’s Vietnam War years, and his subsequent years in the Senate. It is interesting you mentioned Jane Fonda two times, I assume to promote guilt by association. I am curious why you did not include another noteworthy John Kerry quote: “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”
It would be refreshing to read what a San Diego Union-Tribune reporter learned, and was unable to learn, from an investigation of President Bush’s military record and his actions during the Vietnam War years. Just imagine what balanced and fair reporting could do towards educating the electorate and combating polarization. If your slant could not always be guessed, you might have more readers actually read what you write instead of skip your commentary. My wish is for you to be guided by the vision of journalism held by the late Los Angeles Times associate editor Frank del Olmo. Gabriel Garcia Marquez described it in Letters to the Times (2-29-04 Los Angeles Times): “He did journalism without pause, enslaved by the certainty that the world would be better as long as we faced it.”
Sincerely,
Cheryl Ede
P. S. My personal Vietnam War experience was losing the young man I planned to marry. He was killed on May 30, 1966. His designation was MIA. For a war to directly alter the course of one’s life does not require one to have personally participated in it
More than two decades later, I was most fortunate to meet my husband-to-be Terry. His earlier experience expanded my view of the Vietnam War. Terry had flown A-4s and A-7s for the navy. His one tour of duty in Vietnam started in the fall of 1972. Originally, Terry was to go directly from the completion of training to Vietnam, assigned to a squadron on the Forrestal. John McCain had completed his training at the same time. McCain’s orders were to a squadron on the Shangri-La in the Mediterranean. McCain told Terry he had their orders switched--he apparently was eager to get to Vietnam and had the know-how or connections to do this. After tours in the Mediterranean, Terry served in Vietnam on the USS America. One of his worst days occurred when he flew three missions—one after breakfast, another after lunch, and a third after dinner. Upon returning from each mission, he learned a fellow pilot, with whom he had just eaten, had been shot down. Another day that stands out in his memory occurred off the coast of North Vietnam. Terry flew a tanker that day to refuel planes departing to the Philippines for repairs. The planes required too much fuel on takeoff to make it to their destination without refueling. Terry was then asked to do a routine weather reconnaissance around the carrier. When he returned to land, the weather was extremely bad with rain so heavy he could not see the carrier. He made seven approaches, and was running out of fuel. With enough fuel for one more attempt, Terry still could not see the ship, but the landing signal officer said he could hear him, seconds later he said he could see him, and then he said “bring it hard down and to the left.” Terry did just that.
Both he and I agree that people are not exchangeable. One life matters. John Kerry is the man who will make certain if U.S. lives are put in harm’s way or lost protecting the U.S., it will be based on truth and reality.
January 28, 2006
Dear Letters Editor:
In "America will not say, 'I'm sorry'" (Opinion, Jan. 19), Derrick Z. Jackson expresses the underlying sorrow many of us have felt over the past few years as we watched fellow Americans be duped by or nonchalant about another president's deceptions, resulting in the deaths of people we loved and people we don't know.
Jackson's reference to "the self-absorbed American psyche" captures our willingness to accept as collateral damage the deaths of tens of thousands of people by our collective hands, beginning with the pulverization of the wrong people in the first aerial strike on Baghdad.
The slaughter and the deceptions continue. Will enough of us ever say enough's enough?
CHERYL EDE
January 22, 2007
An `insult' to Dr. King's memory
Dear Letters Editor:
Star Parker's attempt to draw a comparison between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s efforts to expand freedom to all Americans and George Bush's efforts in Iraq is an insult to Dr. King's memory and legacy ("King's words ring just as true today," Opinion, Jan. 15). Parker forgets that Bush's rationalization for invading Iraq was because Americans could expect a "mushroom cloud" from Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons and delivery system if we failed to act. "Freeing" Iraqis was only another rationalization in a long list of attempts to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
President Bush is fond of saying that terrorists hate our freedom and want to take it from us. He neglects the idea that perhaps others want to be free of us establishing military bases in their homelands.
Does anyone doubt where King would stand on the war in Iraq if he were alive? Bob Herbert in The New York Times reminds us that one year before his death, King said: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
King spoke out against the Vietnam War "because my conscience leaves me no other choice." He further stated that silence in the face of the horrors of that war amounted to a "betrayal." We don't have Dr. King to lead us, so each of us must take it upon ourselves to carry forward his legacy.
CHERYL EDE
August 15, 2007
Impeachment is not `off the table'
Regarding "What Karl Rove has accomplished" :
Dear Letters Editor:
Columnist Robert D. Novak describes White House deputy chief of staff and senior adviser Karl Rove as "one of the most effective . . . of all presidential aides." Hopefully, we will learn in the not- too-distant future who in the Bush administration was "most effective" in politicizing the Justice Department and to what degree. Is the firing of Carol Lam and other U.S. attorneys the end of the story? We will know the facts if Congress fulfills its oversight functions.
Although Novak states "Since there will be no impeachment proceedings against the president," impeachment is not "off the table," as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has stated. A rally in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 15 is dedicated to impeachment of the president and vice president, as many ordinary Americans continue to pressure Congress to carry out this constitutional correction. Otherwise, the nation's greatest generation will be followed shortly by the nation's most easily duped generation.
CHERYL EDE