Demonstrations stem from ‘indoctination’

To the editor

   Why am I not surprised at the hatred and vitriol spewed on America in the so-called anti-war demonstrations in New York, Washington and elsewhere?
   The answer is simply that they were organized and promoted by that perennial segment of our people who would be against this country, no matter what. The prospective war is simply their latest rallying cry after so many of their other causes have fizzled.
   Their determination to find America at fault in every case is something that we can always depend on.
   What is harder to understand is how the mainstream media largely have failed to identify these elements for what they are, long time America bashers to whom the impending war is only a convenient and timely vehicle for their agenda.
   The Internet, on the other hand, has provided a much more realistic picture of the true nature and motivations of the participants. Numerous interviews of demonstrators on the streets of New York by freelance journalists have shown them to be, not only stridently and viciously anti-American, openly comparing President Bush to Hitler, calling him a power-hungry bastard out to control the world, expressing much more confidence in Saddam Hussein than Bush, etc., but clearly and openly identifying with the Iraqi tyrant.
   A large proportion of the demonstrators were foreigners, some speaking with heavy accents, many of whom, I suspect, are attending American universities as guests of our country and enjoying are freedoms. I wonder if they would feel equally free to express themselves in Iraq, Iran or North Korea?
   I also wonder to what extent we have our university faculties to thank for this outrage, given the anti-American tenor which seems to pervade our campuses these days.

Jon Rogeberg


Hillsborough