In response to Mary Jane Newell’s letter (June 14), I take offense to her statement that liberals would “have us hug terrorists and bow before their demands.”

I have never met a single person with liberal views that has ever wished to hug a terrorist and agree to their demands. It is apparent to me that in our society it is more convenient for conservatives and liberals alike to bad mouth each other rather than discuss national issues that affect us.

As a citizen of the United States, it is an individual’s civic right to question and be concerned with the actions of government. Take away this right, and our government would be a dictatorship, the very form of government we are trying to fight. Newell seems to suggest that liberal individuals should not have this right.

As an individual with liberal views, I could waste my time bad-mouthing conservatives, but I am more concerned with terrorism and war, what we’re doing about it, what we should be doing about it, and questioning if there is a better approach than the one we are taking.

The wars in Vietnam and Somalia both started as civil wars, which the United States chose an involvement with, while unconcerned with civil wars of other countries. Apparently, we have not learned the lessons of Vietnam and Somalia as we continue to fight a war in the Middle East where 834 Americans have died and where zero weapons of mass destruction have been found.

Kara White, Auburn

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