Sudan attack was overreaction

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

This letter appeared in the Advocate (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) on 4 September 1998.

This item may be cited as M. R. Franks, Letter to the Editor: Sudan attack was overreaction, Baton Rouge Advocate, September 4, 1998, at 10B.

Dear Editor:

One wonders why our president even bothered making a goodwill junket to Africa earlier this year. To blow our gains all away in one trigger-happy, diversionary moment of misplaced machismo?

That we should bomb Sudan as their reward for having obligingly expelled Osama bin Laden from their country in 1996 - at our request - is barbaric, nay, perfidious. Had we received hearsay reports that ingredients used in the embassy bombings came from Ireland, Italy, Spain, France or England, rest assured we would never have lobbed cruise missiles at those countries.

The hasty targeting of what now appears to have been an innocent factory making medicines much needed by the children, the ill and the elderly of East Africa hardly endears America to the people of that continent and only reinforces our "imperialist bully" image.

I'm frankly embarrassed that my country now stands less tall in the eyes of each of the 54 countries of Africa.

True, the bombing of our embassies needed to be dealt with - but surely not by immature and irresponsible overreaction that once again leaves the same man who approved Waco standing with innocent blood dripping from guilty hands.

M. R. Franks
2 Swan St.
Baton Rouge

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