U.S. government trains terrorists
Every American knows by now that Osama bin Laden is the current devil of American foreign policy. He is the one who seems to be behind the attacks of Sept. 11. We are informed that he is a Saudi Arabian from a wealthy family who holds to an extreme fundamentalist version of the Islamic faith. Hardly a likable fellow.
The only problem is, like all devils, he is partly myth. Not that he doesn’t exist, or for that matter, play a leading role within certain terrorist networks. He is such a power, but the various states now lining up to volunteer in the “war against terrorism” know quite well that he is not the lynchpin in worldwide terrorism. He is simply a major player specifically within the terrorist networks that have associations with Islamic fundamentalism.
But another fact that has been mentioned, but not explained is that bin Laden was once a CIA operative. He learned what he knows from this intelligence agency of the U.S. government. What was he trained for? To carry out terrorist activities for the CIA, or so one would have to assume. Like so many of America’s enemies of the past several years, bin Laden is also a former ally who has gone renegade. This is the sort of company that all states seek, the sort of allies every ruling class courts. Why, then, trust our leaders when they call us to fight these terrorists they trained?

Brenton Gicker

student

Lane Community College

Patriotism means respecting dissent
I agree with graduate student Sean Walston’s description of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as “an atrocity” (“Peace activists are hypocrites,” ODE, 10/22). I’m less comfortable with his description of peace activists as guilty of “ideological arrogance” and of being “hypocritical and intellectually dishonest.”
Walston argues that “others have paid the ultimate price … in defense of the principles we as a nation hold dear.” Freedom of speech is, of course, one of those important principles; yet, in my opinion, Walston and others who label dissenters as unpatriotic dishonor those who died by wanting to deny the freedom they died for to citizens who question the infallibility of our governmental leaders or who examine the wisdom of their frequently self-serving policies.
The current revival of this sort of divisive and illogical nastiness posing as patriotism is merely an updating of the McCarthyism of the 1950s and the “Love It or Leave It” nonsense of the ’60s and ’70s. True patriotism to me means supporting what’s supportable and questioning what isn’t.
I prefer this approach to blind lockstep obedience. As an ex-Marine, a teacher for 39 years, a father of three University of Oregon graduates and a grandfather, I fly the flag proudly, but that doesn’t mean I want to hide behind it or wear it as a blindfold.

Jerome Garger

Eugene