The arrogance of Dean Carignan’s column that appeared in Jan. 11 paper was exceeded only by its length.

If you washed away the references to poets and cowardly senators of a bygone era, you see the piece as anti-American and the dean as a historical revisionist.

He feels that Americans are wicked for what they did to Native Americans in the 18th century, and we must forever be shamed by it. However, the tyrants of the Middle East are allowed to torture and murder their own and force them to live in poverty. This, the Carignan refers to as culture and a way of life. America is wicked for interfering with this marvelous way of life, and we should be forever shamed for that as well.

In reality, we are not trying to “Americanize” the Middle East. The war in Iraq is the enforcing of the cease-fire agreement following Desert Storm that the U.N. was unwilling to handle.

Several men attacked America, trying to impose their religious beliefs on us. Our response was to remove those who blame our prosperity for their country’s poverty and shed the light of self-government into the shadows of tyranny. The America Carignan envisions is one where strength is a character flaw, freedom is a myth and prosperity is a sin. I, for one, want no part of that America.

Ronald J. Theriault, Rumford

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