Stephen Sciaretta: You express irrational bitterness towards America and Americans

Having only read a Bancroft-Hinchey for the first time, I must confess disappointment with the low level, amateurish propaganda being passed off by your publication as considered, responsible opinion. Clearly, his manner of expression concerning President Bush’s administration and the hyperbolic tone he uses in his gross exaggeration and condemnation of the tragic consequences of some US activities in Iraq common to all wars, including the fighting in Chechnya, betrays an irrational bitterness towards America and Americans that can hardly be addressed in intelligent discourse. However, as an avid student of World War II history, I am particularly outraged by Bancroft-Hinchey’s comments regarding the US efforts in that war.

His distortion and ignorance of facts is breathtaking. Certainly, Russia bore the brunt of the war against Nazi Germany, but it is important to note that this became necessary only after Stalin’s unholy, dastardly alliance with Hitler fell apart, which, incidentally, did not occur because the Soviet leader experienced an epiphany, saw the light, and realigned with the forces of light and reason of the West to defeat the Hun. Rather, it was the turning of the German butcher on the Soviet butcher, one rat on the other, which gave rise to the horrendous fighting on the Eastern Front. Thank God for the valor of the common Russian soldier, supplied and kept from certain annihilation by massive, selfless US effort. To claim that the Russian sacrifice was to liberate Europe is another obvious propaganda plagiarism from the bad old days of the Cold War. It is also belied by the now undeniable quality of the “liberation” granted to the peoples of Eastern Europe by Stalin after the war. (The slurs against our soldiers uttered by Bancroft-Hinchey are not worthy of response.) It is also now equally undeniable that the motives of Americans in sending their sons to fight and die in Europe twice during the past century were exceedingly altruistic and uncomplicated. Germany, twice, was properly seen as a force of militaristic, inhuman totalitarianism that attacked its democratic neighbors who were our friends. In both cases Germany without doubt would have been victorious if the US had not intervened in these European affairs. It is at least arguable that the US would not have been much worse off if it had remained neutral and hundreds of thousands of our young men would have lived. But this would have been devastating to our