Letters to the Editor

Williams at the bat

Your Thursday story on D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams’ boycott of Orioles baseball games (“Williams gives the Orioles a walk,” Page 1) brought a smile to my face. As the founder of Boycott the Orioles Organization (BOO), I and countless others have worked tirelessly to convince tens of thousands of D.C.-area baseball fans to stop attending Orioles games, so it is gratifying to have someone of Mr. Williams’ stature come around to our way of thinking. Once Orioles owner Peter Angelos realizes he won’t be losing any fans to a D.C. baseball team — because those fans have already been lost — perhaps, then, the last impediment to the District getting a team will finally be lifted.

I want to officially welcome Mr. Williams to the boycotter ranks and let him know that BOO has bestowed upon him an honorary lifetime membership in our organization. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take a lifetime to bring the national pastime back to the nation’s capital, where it rightly belongs.

JEFFREY A. SIMENAUER

Founder

Boycott the Orioles Organization

Garrett Park, Md.

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Mayor Anthony A. Williams claims that he is “tired of being dissed” by Major League Baseball and other sports institutions. But it’s really Washington’s taxpayers who aren’t getting any respect.

The mayor wants to earn his “props” by spending $340 million in local tax dollars to construct a new baseball stadium in the nation’s capital. This would be on top of the $93 million in new taxes that the mayor proposed in his 2005 budget.

Talk about getting dissed: Under Mr. Williams’ plan, middle-class taxpayers would be forced to fund a new money-making machine for millionnaire baseball players and billionnaire team owners.

Mr. Williams needs to learn the valuable lesson that real respect must be earned; it cannot be bought with other people’s tax dollars.

MARK SCHMIDT

Director of programs

National Taxpayers Union

Alexandria

Lessons from other U.S. ’quagmires’

President Bush has reminded us that we will prevail in the war in Iraq (“Bush holds to June 30 turnover,” Page 1, Wednesday). But over the next few months, the important names to remember aren’t Fallujah, Baghdad and Najaf but Gettysburg, Antietam and Normandy.

During the battle at Gettysburg, the victors lost 20 percent of their men. At Antietam, more than 23,000 men were killed or wounded on that single, endless September day. During the Normandy landings, America lost 500 men a minute. We stand today only because they refused to stand idly while evil ran rampant. We need to be reminded of that. Not only reminded of the loss, but also of the justice, sacrifice and liberty that each drop of blood spilled during those perilous times represents.

Pictures of dead Iraqi children, killed American soldiers and crying parents from both countries cannot stand alone. They must be tempered with the justice that justifies each indelible crimson-stained spot of earth left at Valley Forge or Gettysburg or Antietam or Normandy or any other battle where life traded places with liberty.

We need to be reminded that we will not prevail because we’re bigger. Facing potentially horrific results (even in battles won), we need to know that America (at least the idea of America) is right.

We will prevail because the blood that flows through us Americans is a strange brew. It is part courage — the courage of recent immigrants, who left their own lands for liberty, and the courage of former immigrants who formed this country — and part humility — the humility that we are in a grand experiment that can succeed only with the help of God’s divine providence and man’s eternal vigilance. We will prevail because justice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere.

We will prevail because liberty tried is liberty triumphant.

RAAFAT S. TOSS

Jersey City, N.J.

Patience (doesn’t) pay off

Former President Jimmy Carter says, “Now it seems as though it is an attractive thing in Washington to resort to war in the very early stage of resolving an altercation” (“Thanks, Jimmy,” Inside Politics, Nation, Wednesday).

Has Mr. Carter been living under a rock? Off the top of my head, I recall that the current war in Iraq was the result of more than 10 years of conflict. There was a military action that the United States and many other nations undertook to remove Iraq from Kuwait in 1991.

For 10 years after the first war, U.S. military aircraft enforced no-fly zones over Iraq, while Iraqis fired missiles attempting to shoot them down. During the same period, Saddam Hussein slaughtered thousands of his countrymen.U.N.mandateswere constantly violated by the Iraqi regime. U.N. inspections teams were run out of Iraq or departed in total frustration, unable to conduct their task. Saddam Hussein tried to kill a former U.S. president, George H.W. Bush. Many nations, and the United Nations, were on the record stating a belief the Iraqi regime illegally possessed or was in the process of developing weapons of mass destruction.

What constitutes “the very early stage of resolving” a conflict for Mr. Carter? He’s obviously a very patient man with a ridiculously long horizon regarding a reasonable period. Actually, Mr. Carter exemplifies liberal thinking — there are no bounds to patience against rogue nations or when we are threatened. Of course, he did try once to micromanage a small military foray into Iran. (Recall President Carter’s disastrous plan to send a military team into Iran in order to rescue American hostages.) Mr. Carter has absolutely no credibility regarding the proper time or use of military power.

DAVID MARTIN

Fairfax

Move over, Britney

Just when we thought our young women were at a loss for a true role model, along comes Condoleezza Rice (“’No silver bullet’ that could have prevented 9/11, Rice testifies,” Nation, April 9).

After lewd performances by Britney Spears and Janet Jackson, many mothers and grandmothers struggle for ways to discuss the merits of decency with their daughters. By making stars of strippers, our media is sending dangerous signals to our already-confused youth. Even the most intellectually gifted teens can be seen getting their noses, belly buttons, etc. pierced, and their bodies scarred with tattoos. It won’t be long before these same copycat young women will be looking for real jobs, but who wants a half-naked freak show in the front office?

Miss Rice has done a great service with her accomplishments, not only to her own parents but to every mom in the world. Whatever else one might think of President Bush, he did bring us a national treasure … Miss Rice. An authentic, attractive, intelligent role model - fully clothed.

LYNN BATEMAN

Alexandria

Marine gives credit

This letter is to correct a slight error in Diana West’s column “Heroes and villains” (Op-Ed, yesterday). In regard to the 1993 Somalia incident she references, the 18 brave U.S. servicemen who lost their lives were Army soldiers, not Marines.

Being a Marine, we will always brag about our battlefield prowess, but we also recognize the heroic efforts of our Army brethren. I’m not sure if I would use the term “ill-equipped” in describing the soldiers, but I would say that the task force was poorly prepared to deal with unforeseen circumstances. I suspect she has read “Black Hawk Down” by Mark Bowden, but if she hasn’t, I know she would find it a remarkable book that is hard to put down and that gives great insight into military operations other than war (MOOTW) in countries such as Somalia.

MAJ. JEFFREY R. RILEY

U.S. Marine Corps Reserves

Manassas