Editor:
Is John Gleeson "Off the Beach" or off his rocker (Coast Reporter, June 21)? His views could not be filled with more inaccuracy and misconceptions thanif they had been printed in Pravda or Red Star in 1950.
Gleeson describes President Kennedy as ending a foreign policy of U.S. military imperialism. Kennedy was responsible for the military build-up in Vietnam, resulting in millions of casualties. Kennedy was also the architect of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, a feeble attempt to overthrow Castro by the CIA.
Gleeson claimed that the insurgents used chemical weapons in Syria. The CIA, British, French and Israeli intelligence, all has agreed that a militia controlled by Syrian President Assad used these weapons.
Finally, to call Libya a "progressive country under Gaddafi," is like saying Tojo and Idi Amin were progressive because they didn't persecute Jews.
Let the world remember that Gaddafi not only was a murderer of his own people, but also ordered the bombing of a Pan Am flight that killed over 200 innocentpeople over Scotland. Plus, Gaddafi directed his agents to plant bombs in a Berlin nightclub frequented by U.S. servicemen, killing and wounding many.
U.S. foreign policy since the Second World War has often been misguided or even a total failure, but, also, it has seen the successes such as Bosnia and the 1992 Iraqiconflict.
If the U.S. and its western allies all become neutral (Switzerland), and world foreign policy was set by Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, or any other despotic nation, what kind of world would we have?
Hal Hensel, Sechelt
