From: John Friedrich
Edinburgh
I would like to respond to the Dec. 11 letter titled “Columnist’s talk of democracy misses some American truths.” The writer asserts that the United States is not a democracy. Being one who did not sleep through government classes in school, the United States is a democracy. It is a democracy in which the people elect representatives to make laws and govern, therefore it is a representative democracy. In the end, it is the voters who wield the political power over their representatives, therefore it is a democracy. The Constitution designates the election of representatives by the voters to act in their behalf.
I found the letter’s comments regarding Ukraine and the George Washington quote quite a stretch. Having not slept through history classes, I, and I am sure George Washington did, know of the critical role the French played in the American Revolutionary War. They supplied significant amounts of weapons and ammunition to the American Continental Army. The French supplied almost half the troops at the siege of Yorktown. The French fleet battled and drove off the British fleet when the British tried to reinforce or evacuate the British Army from Yorktown. This resulted in the British Army surrender, and the end of that war. I am sure George Washington was very happy with French involvement. The French had many men killed and wounded.
American involvement in “foreign” entanglements has been an ongoing situation in this country from the very start. The lands that now constitute the United States were once “foreign”, until the indigenous peoples were forced out. Even before the Civil War, the US had a war with Mexico. Some American foreign involvement has been less than noble, or not very successful. Other times American involvement has been decisive, such as when the the American Army stopped the German Army march toward Paris in 1918, or again helped defeat Germany in 1945.
The United States involvement in Ukraine is relatively minimal, involving weapons, munitions, supplies, and information. The Ukrainians are the ones who being injured, killed, tortured, and frozen. The United States involvement in the Ukraine War of survival is less than the French involvement in the American Revolutionary War.
