Pacifist view ignores reality of 3,000 deaths

To the editor:

I found the letter from Adam M. Cox very disturbing. As a teacher, he is in a position of authority and is able to mold young minds more easily than those of us who do not have access to these students. It is apparent that Cox is a pacifist and is proud of the fact that some, if not all, of his students are also espousing his pacifist doctrine.

Cox implied that the United States was responsible for the insidious attack by Osama bin Ladin and the al-Qaida network and that we are to be condemned for retaliating. He argues that even though they spilled our innocent blood, we have no moral right to spill theirs. This is a ludicrous argument.

Cox said he was "emboldened and encouraged" because some of his students also feel that "violence never ends violence ... it only breeds more." Perhaps. But this overlooks the fact that 3,000 innocent Americans were slaughtered by madmen, including 400 policemen and firemen who ran into burning buildings to save their fellow Americans.

What I find most disturbing is his closing statement: His students "will understand how to love and respect and yield." Yield to what? To whom? The Taliban? Osama bin Ladin? Saddam Hussein? Yield to some wild Islamic jihad that slaughters another 3,000 innocents while we turn the other cheek?

Fortunately, we live in a country where we are allowed to be angry about what happened and to exhibit the determination that it will not happen again.

CHARLES W. POWERS

Cape Girardeau