Letter: Cheney is no patriot

In his Sept. 8 letter, “Don’t impugn Dick Cheney’s honor,” E. Bruce Preece found the cartoon comparing Dick Cheney to Gadhafi “grossly inaccurate” and “offensive.” I found it spot-on. Cheney’s horrible faux leadership hurt us greatly.

Before Cheney (and his puppet, Bush), the U.S.:

Shunned torturing suspects, because torture is inhumane and doesn’t work;

Let prisoners have legal counsel, because people should be considered innocent until proven guilty and have a fair trial;

Rejected illegally wire-tapping our own people; never attacked a sovereign country without cause, because such “pre-emptive” strikes fly in the face of values our nation has stood for;

Never prevented the media from showing caskets of our servicemen and women who gave their lives for us, because their sacrifice should never be used for political gain, and we value free speech and expression;

Had finally gotten ahead financially, stabilized our economy with a budget surplus;

Understood religious diversity isn’t a bad thing, that extremists exist in all groups, and creating paranoia for political gain is just plain disgusting;

Never let leaders use fear to motivate people for personal and political gain.

If Preece believes Cheney kept us “safe from terrorist attacks for nearly eight years,” he is hallucinating. Cheney’s wholly unpatriotic actions should have landed him in prison.

Roy Wilson

Vancouver