Eleanor Kinnaird: Use caution in Middle East
Regarding the Nov. 28 column “The import of language and President Oh-bummer”: Dana Milbank excoriated President Obama for his tepid, measured response to the Paris ISIS attack in contrast to French President Hollande’s fiery call to arms. Milbank said that’s no way to “rally a nation.” But President Obama is right on.
The Middle East is a mess, and no amount of fighting words will fix it. Remember Bush’s “mission accomplished” bravado? It is widely agreed that today’s chaos in the Middle East is attributable to Bush’s ill-conceived Iraq invasion.
The other tragic fallout of the Iraq War is the attack on our civil liberties with passage of the Patriot Act and the ubiquitous surveillance of the American people.
Caution, not bravado, is definitely what’s needed before we send our military men and women into harm’s way and spend billions for a cause no one can explain, much less solve.
Eleanor Kinnaird
Chapel Hill
This story was originally published December 1, 2015 at 3:56 PM with the headline "Eleanor Kinnaird: Use caution in Middle East."