Letters to the Editor: We are a nation of political violence. Thanks, GOP leaders, for the photo op.
By Thomas Breen, Los Angeles
The world is at peace. The economy is booming. The country is the envy of the globe.
Yet, this year, there are so many troubling stories of American citizens and allies who are being slaughtered by our government and its supporters that the news media is not covering them to their full extent.
The most prominent of these stories involves the American-supported violent attacks on the Rohingya minority in Myanmar. There were more than 300,000 Rohingya refugees who have fled across the border to Bangladesh. With the assistance of the United States, they arrived at one of the largest refugee camps in Bangladesh.
The United States is one of the largest donors of humanitarian aid from overseas. Yet, it remains a silent partner in this refugee crisis.
A former special-operations commander during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Major-general Thomas McInerney, is speaking out on behalf of the United States. In a letter posted on the website for the group Veterans for Peace, he said the United States has been at the forefront of U.S. military operations, most recently in Syria, and that we should do more to support the refugees.
He said that “the United Nations has consistently argued that ‘the people of Burma’ should be accommodated in Myanmar and not resettled in Bangladesh. Now, some U.S. senators want to ‘make the case’ that the refugees who have been resettled in Bangladesh should not be resettled in Bangladesh,” according to Veterans for Peace.
“Major-general McInerney,” they wrote, “calls on the United Nations, the United States, and Congress to immediately suspend funding of the refugee camp in Bangladesh.” Other countries that have been providing humanitarian aid – and who are now being criticized, according to McInerney:
“Some U.S. senators have called for military assistance to the country, as well, including Senators
