Dr. Bala Ambati's Nov. 6 column was unbelievable. Sometimes I think he must be living in a totally different world from mine. Either that or he takes in the bits and pieces of news that feed distorted and simplistic views of life and ignore the rest.
Here are examples of his one-sided account. A better deal than anyone in history for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Please, the Camp David proposals were almost laughable. Israel, a country created by practicing terrorism on the innocent of Palestinians, demonstrated at Camp David that it was not willing to seriously consider the plight of the Palestinians; not surprising considering who the culprit was.
The war in Afghanistan protected American citizens? Quite the contrary. Not only is Osama still on the loose, we have created more enemies out of the innocents that watched their family members die from misguided American efforts to supposedly make their lives better. As for Ambati's theory that "Islamic fundamentalism imperialism" (a nonsensical term in itself) lies at the root of all terror, consider the Muslim and Christian citizens in India whose government does nothing to protect them from violence by Hindu fundamentalists, extremists in Ireland that bomb school children, Israeli troops that daily murder innocents and bulldoze homes, the brutally repressive Russian government in Chechnya and the list goes on.
I am in no way implying that we deserved the Sept. 11 attacks. But we need to realize that the support for those attacks results from American support for the oppression of innocent people worldwide. The way to create a peaceful Middle East is not by killing people and their leaders, but by empowering people to govern themselves. Lifting sanctions on Iraq would be a good start. As for Bala: pick up a history book and read more than one newspaper. You should find it enlightening.
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