| Consumerism motivated terrorists The United States is not a terrorist nation, as Orin Dooley says in the March 6 UMConnection. Rev. Dooleys gratuitous allegation is false. He offers a list of terrible wrongs that are indeed a part of American history and imputes an anger over those wrongs into the Mideastern terrorist mind. Nothing on his list is the actual root of their hatred of us. The Pentagon was not attacked because Richard Nixon bombed Cambodia; the World Trade Center was not destroyed to protest slavery. The concern of the radical East is not Jim Crow, its Mickey D. We dont want to terrorize people; we want to make them happy customers. Their dread is cultural, not political. A by-product of international trade is the exportation of popular American culture, which is hedonistic and profane. The tide of denim and videotape is terrifying to a culture that is medieval, theocratic and authoritarian While Dooley was exercising his right to freely express himself, seven of our soldiers in Afghanistan were killed in the bloodiest battle yet in Americas war on terrorism. Dooley seems to equate terrorists with soldiers and soldiers with terrorists. The UMConnection is published in a conference where many military families live. The greater United Methodist family lost friends and loved ones at the Pentagon. I regret if loved ones of any of those lost that day saw a copy of Dooleys letter. I hate to think of it adding to their pain. Rev. Dan Stone
Delmont UMC, Severn Back to top U.N. seminar shouldnt be snidely dismissed I note from the commentaries in the March 20 UMConnection that Carroll Yingling and Bill Boyer both attended the same U.N. seminar sponsored by the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, but each came away with a different message. Yingling was moved by the reports of the effects of poverty and war in Third World countries and by the work of agencies seeking to correct these injustices. Boyer viewed the seminar as one-sided and full of unsubstantiated charges. If his allegations are accurate, he has performed a service in pointing out the perceived defects. However, he does nothing to set the record straight except to categorically dismiss the contents of the seminar. Furthermore, I was bothered by Boyers snide put-down of the seminar. Question: Where do World Trade Organization demonstrators go when theyre not demonstrating? he asks. Answer: To the same seminar, where they and the old hippies reinforce each others fantasies. Boyer seems to categorically dismiss the entire premise of the seminar, namely, that there is a Third World out there that is living through incredible misery, and that there is a call to First World folks to respond with compassion. Calling the world exceedingly complex, Boyer challenges: To be included in the search for solutions the church must bring something real to the table not conspiracy theories, and certainly not the mantras of the 1960s. Boyer seems to take delight in taking pot shots at the seminar, but he does not venture to offer his own solutions. Rev. Harry C. Kiely, retired Back to top | 
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