To the Editor:

I didn’t recognize myself; Mr. Looper’s characterization of me in his full column response on Sunday leaves little to the imagination.

He has eagerly and mistakenly concluded that I am as far to the left as he is to the right. I have no doubt that he that he is a “passionate patriot,” as he puts it, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t be wrong or that those who disagree with him don’t love this country and deserve his respect.

I haven’t forgotten Sept. 11, as he intimates. But neither have I forgotten how we got into Iraq – bad intelligence, bad judgement and bad strategy. It has been far from a “slam dunk,” as CIA head George Tenant assured the president. The daily carnage speaks for itself. Earlier, tens of thousands of us were in Vietnam, and we haven’t forgotten that war or its lessons either.

Mr. Looper’s resort to labels or pejoratives, including “disloyal opponents” and “politically correct appeasers” serves no purpose, except to attack or belittle. I say again, that our system is based on the belief that the wisest decisions flow from hearing differing opinions, especially those we don’t like. Truth is not won by arrogance!

In Robert Bolt’s play, “A Man for All Seasons,” Sir Thomas More, facing his execution, says, “I do none harm, I say none harm, I think none harm. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live.”

To me, these beautifully expressed sentiments should guide us in this community in the days ahead.

Kirtley Brown

Marion Junction