This is no time for PC rhetoric from Americans

To the editor:

I wish to sharply rebut the Sept. 24 letter from Dick Jackson, who urged us not to deploy military action against the terrorists. He said he is a veteran of the Vietnam War and doesn't want another one. There won't be. Our president said this will be a totally different war than we've ever fought.

Jackson said war is ugly. It is, but sometimes it is necessary to defend us. Unlike Vietnam, the enemy has come to our shores and invaded us.

Jackson implied that the attacks were our fault for how we have "mistreated" Iraq and Afghanistan. He said we should try to understand why these "misunderstood" individuals want to cause us harm. Who cares? He suggested one reason is because the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan are starving. We could pour tons of food, medicine and humanitarian aid into those countries, and it would not reach the citizens.

We have the power and might to stop terrorists, but we need the will. In times like this, we have to leave political correctness at the doorstep and think with common sense for a change.

GREGORY A. LINCOLN

Cape Girardeau