Letter to the editor

By Ned Scarlet Cleveland

Editor,
America has a new role in the world. Our country leads from the rear, steers clear, draws unpassable-passable red lines, arbitrarily kills from the sky, and when our citizens are attacked and die, we declare “What difference does it make.”
Now, due to events in Ukraine, we have unsheathed our arsenal of tough sounding words and meaningless phrases; spoken by a Secretary of State, whose drone-like voice subjects the listener to worse punishment than what his recipient is threatened with.
Adding to the circus, the media trumpets the threats with somber faces to emote the serious consequences, should the target of our words not be impressed with their lethality. It is a play we have seen many times and we all know the ending; the butt of our audio onslaught ignores the verbosity and continuous in his dastardly ways.
I find a personal solution by not listening to the babble of news. I then try to find one story with “just the facts” as Joe Friday would say. However, what I tune out, our enemy savors. The mouthing of these empty threats serves to strengthen him in the eyes of supporters and weakens our image. If we have no intention of doing anything concrete we would be better off to remain silent. If we fear our silence will be taken as consent, we can issue a statement saying we do not approve, but choose to do nothing, and leave it at that.
I am reminded to be grateful that President Bush took decisive action after we were attacked on September 11, 2001. I expected the standard act of tough talk and no action. President Bush in a manner always understood, confirmed America to be the strong horse, not a braying donkey; a manner that discourages future aggression, and not tempt more.