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Vail Daily letter: ‘Miss’ to Gustafson, Daily

In the July 23 edition of the Vail Daily, the editorial staff gave a “Hit” to Dick Gustafson’s “multi-media American history project called the Spirit of ’76 — Renewed.” The editorial staff went on to state that Gustafson’s “effort to better educate our youth about U.S history is only noble.”

Really? Isn’t U.S history a required course in every high school? Isn’t U.S history a core requirement for a bachelor’s degree at just about every college? Didn’t the Texas State Board of Education rewrite the history books in Texas to minimize Thomas Jefferson because he was the most outspoken of the founders in his belief in the separation of church and state? Is the Vail Daily editorial staff so naive that they believe that Gustafson will simply rely on the accepted U.S history contributed by so many talented historians over the centuries? Let me offer a wild guess. Gustafson’s mission has nothing to do with U.S history and everything to do with peddling his own hate-mongering politics.

Gustafson is the letter writer who has harped on the same themes in about a half dozen letters in the recent past. His most recent Valley Voices commentary (Monday’s Vail Daily) expresses his usual hatred of Obama, calls Hillary Clinton a liar and renews his often spoken conspiracy theory about Benghazi.



To simply quote Gustafson’s language criticizing Obama is a long letter in itself. He never gets into any real debatable substance, which makes his criticisms sound like a blatant racist.

So let’s get to Benghazi. Let’s ask the real question. What was Ambassador Stevens doing in a small, poorly guarded mission outside his embassy on a date that was 9/11?

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He wasn’t asked or ordered to be there. The U.S State Department had alerted him to increased risk of a terrorist attack. Libyan military juntas friendly to the U.S had also warned him of same. The U.S military (not the CIA) had asked him a few months before the attack if he wanted extra protection at the embassy. He declined. He had altered his exercise route and schedule in Benghazi because he felt his route and schedule were being tracked.

So why was he at this tiny, poorly protected mission on 9/11? We will never know the answer to this most basic question. But that is all lost on Gustafson. To him, opinion and fact are the same.

And Gustafson wants a contribution to his cause. I will give him one. I will help him find an orifice that he couldn’t find with two hands and a road map. And to the Vail Daily, your “hit” was a big swinging “miss.”

Jim Cameron

Avon


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