Letter to the Editor

Ashcroft's foes wage all-out war of good vs. evil

To the editor:

Last year, Christians united to support John Ashcroft when he was under a vicious attack by enemies of freedom. The ACLU and others were outraged that an outspoken Christian and vigilant defender of the U.S. Constitution could be named as head of the Department of Justice.

Ashcroft is devoting himself to the appropriate mission. "Our response has been to wage a deliberate campaign of arrest and detention of violators and suspected terrorists in order to protect American lives," he told a group of attorneys last month.

But his opponents are mortified, claiming the civil liberties of detained individuals, held in connection with Sept. 11's terrorists attacks, are being violated. And they have filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice in the middle of a war. Our enemies of freedom and the Constitution are the people who used airplanes to turn symbols of our national defense and economic strength into smoldering piles of rubble and who tried to destroy our way of life, undermine our constitutional framework and strangle our right to exist as free people.

As much as the ACLU and others hate to admit it, the truth is that noncitizens in our country, particularly those who are here illegally, do not have the same rights as American Citizens. Period. Don't be fooled. This has nothing to do with civil liberties. And it is not a constitutional struggle between liberals and conservatives. This is an all-out battle between good and evil.

MARION CARLSON

Cape Girardeau