Truth or Fiction on the Internet

Dear editor:

It is amazing how much is spread on the internet in the name of “truth” which is actually “political fiction” and damaging to the perception of many who don’t know the difference between the two. Many people wrongly believe that if they read it on the internet it must be true and continue to forward these stories to everyone they know. These distortions and fabrications are meant to harm those running for office and in effect harm our country and our political system. They were damagingly effective against Sen. John McCain in his presidential 2000 run against George Bush, destroyed the 2004 effort of Sen. John Kerry in his run for the White House, and have taken hold against Sen. Barack Obama with the claims that he is a “closet Muslim” out to destroy the United States.

Politics has become dirtier and dirtier and now there is a major internet push to prove that President Bush and his pre-emptive war against Iraq is nothing new, as Democratic presidents have attacked countries that “never fired a shot” at our country. Their examples are dastardly and anyone with the smallest bit of historical knowledge would know lies when they saw them. They bring up three so-called examples.

First they claim that President Franklin Roosevelt took us into war against Germany even though that Nazi regime had never done anything against the U.S. In actuality, our country was attacked at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 by the Empire of Japan and Congress at the urging of FDR declared war on that country as a result. Four days later Nazi Germany, as an ally of Japan and a member of their Axis Pact, declared war on the United States. Italy followed suit and as a result America was drawn into the European War.

Next they state that President Harry Truman took us into a war against North Korea, a country that had never attacked America. How easily people choose to forget. The United States, in cooperation with the United Nations, answered a call for help from South Korea when it was attacked by North Korea. South Korea was an ally of the U.S. just like Kuwait was assisted by America at the urging of President George H.W. Bush. Both were defensive moves against invasion of our allies and therefore justified.

Finally, the internet phony historians claim that Presidents Kennedy and Johnson invaded Vietnam even though we had not been shot at once by anyone. Here again, we answered a call from an ally, South Vietnam, when it was invaded by North Vietnam, as was the case with both Kuwait and South Korea. While the U.S. did not start that war, the shame of it was that it was allowed to go on for so long and at a horrible cost of lives and treasury. Today we are repeating that mistake in Iraq, a country that truly never fired a shot at us and had no Weapons of Mass Destruction (a fact that has been proven over and over again.) We must be careful to remember that it was Afghanistan that harbored the terrorists of 9/11, which justified our war against that regime, even though we have bungled it badly.

We must be careful in what we read on the internet and seek the truth before taking the convenient path of unknowingly spreading lies to others. Check it out first.