http://www.hendersondispatch.com/articl ... /let05.txt

Katrina and war show less caring for Americans than Iraqis


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


To the editor:

The nation is still reeling from the Hurricane Katrina tragedy. Many are angry and rightfully questioning why the response was so slow. The level 5 hurricane was mapped for days off the U.S. coast. Although now the support is coming, what happened to the early and pre-hurricane planning?

Many are starting to see the open split between rhetoric and facts. As a part of the defense spending budget, money is being allotted for Iraq and other nations to rebuild mosques, some that have been documented as being used for snipers. American officers are giving out money to Islam both in the form of rebuilding Islamic houses of worship and in the form of Qurans to prisoners of the U.S. military. Yet in this nation, Christian religious expression is suppressed. To be sure, FEMA et all will not be rebuilding churches and synagogues in the gulf coast, at least not without serious opposition.

Many of the gulf states are without necessary help from their own national guard, who are in over 100 foreign countries, including Iraq. Many governors have had inadequate help to help their own people. While our own borders are wide open to many different kinds of illegal immigrants, some recently rounded up nationwide after committing untold numbers of violent crimes, we are securing Iraq's borders.

As part of our spending, we are currently supplying Iraqis with education, food and clothes. We are providing Iraqis with national health care. Our own citizens are dying on rooftops, highway overpasses and sports arenas. They have sat for several days as police and national guardsmen have had little to no medicines and food/water. We are trying to secure Iraq's streets and provinces, meanwhile our own cities are falling apart under the weight of crime, especially in the west where illegal immigrants are committing violent property and person crimes.

Just what nation, we have to ask, are our nation's leaders supporting. To who are they accountable to and what ideology are they supportive of? They have not been there for our people, who elected them and whom they claim to support. They truly do not have an American view of government, nor our founders' vision. Though feeding, clothing, educating and providing health care are not legitimate functions of the federal government, at least they can help our own citizens if they are going to override the legitimate functions of government. Americans elected our national leaders to serve the citizens of the USA, not the rest of the world.