As a result of my previous letter of political satire, I have been attacked as an ignorant idiot by people who apparently have never read satirical columns. I doubt that President Bush or Vice President Cheney has ever heard of Veishea.

I urge those who attack me for suggesting that the present leadership of this country caused the Veishea riots to look up the word “satire” in a dictionary. This letter grew out of hearing of Cheney’s remarks, which I quoted in my letter, about how a vote for Kerry would result in a new round of terrorism in this country, just after I heard that the Veishea committee did not find a clear reason for the Veishea riots. This linkage produced my satirical letter.

This letter grew out of my resentment of Bush and Cheney’s repeated assertion that anyone who questions them is unpatriotic and a potential source of weakness to the United States.

They assume that they alone have an understanding of the problems this country faces and that they alone know how they should best resolve them. Anyone who challenges them is aiding the terrorists or the Iraqis.

This is the type of tactic employed by Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War, with such ferocity that he began to wage war against anyone who disagreed with him. This is what led to Watergate and to his forced resignation from office. Bush and Cheney seem to be marching along the same road.

This leads to another question. Do Bush and Cheney have the clearest understanding of the present crisis involving conflict with the Muslim world? I think not. After Sept. 11, this country was united behind the leadership of Bush and his determination to protect this country against terrorism.

But he got sidetracked into his family’s feud with Saddam Hussein. Rather than finish what he started in Afghanistan, he illegally diverted $750 million from that operation to plan a war with Iraq. Despite the fact that the intelligence sources suggesting that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction were shaky at best and that there was no evidence of links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, he went ahead with this war.

Even though every Middle Eastern specialist worth his or her salt pointed out that bin Laden is bitterly opposed to what he sees as the secularism and anti-Islamic positions of Saddam Hussein; even though the government’s own commission on Sept. 11 concluded that there were neither weapons of mass destruction nor linkages between al-Qaida and Iraq; and even though his own Secretary of State, Colin Powell, warned them about the dangers of trying to occupy Iraq; Bush and Cheney went ahead.

Thousands of people (including more than a thousand Americans) have died in what has become a quagmire with no exit strategy. It has also become a prime recruiting ground for al-Qaida. Bush’s policies are not making us safer; they are putting us more at risk.

Robert Baum

Associate Professor

Religious Studies