Lower the rhetoric
Dear editor:
In a letter by Mr. Michael Preble on Oct 27, he declared “the price of human life, a big arms deal and presidential integrity.” Of course, he is referring to President Trump and how he is dealing with the apparent murder of Saudi citizen and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi. Evidently, he (and others) feel President Trump should cancel a multibillion dollar arms deal (I suppose they could always buy from China or Russia) which would provide thousands of jobs and revenue to a major American company and the U.S. Treasury, and perhaps permanently damage our relations with a major Middle East ally strictly over this. While what happened is tragic and wrong, to do what Mr. Preble and apparently others want is extremely shortsighted and naive. Should the U.S. protest it and let the Saudis know this is unacceptable, you bet, but to go any further than that defies common sense and doesn’t look at the bigger picture. One other thing to remember: he is a Saudi citizen and, at least to some degree, it’s none of the U.S.’s business. He was a popular member of the Washington, D.C., cocktail circuit and a journalist, thus all the attention. If this were a Saudi citizen with no connection to our country, we would never hear about it. This sounds insensitive, however, it is reality.
Mr. Preble then goes on a short rant about how the extreme right supposedly has gone to war with “the rest of us,” referring to the recent mail bombs by a far right wing extremist. This person committed multiple crimes and should be prosecuted for it, no doubt. However, what Mr. Preble conveniently fails to mention, selective memory perhaps, is all the violence and harassment that the far left has been doing since Trump got elected, to include a GOP congressman getting shot. Harassment and civil disobedience toward conservatives has even been promoted by key Democrat politicians like Holder, Clinton and Waters, so who has gone to war with whom? Both sides need to lower the rhetoric and promote some degree of civility.
I suspect Mr. Preble’s mindset is just more anti-Trump and anti-GOP than anything else, and these current circumstances just gives him more reasons to criticize. Finally, we are all Americans, with much more in common (I hope) than differences, let’s start acting like it. Mike Williams Hot Springs Village