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To the editor:
Ron Isaac's "Knockoffs and retting rackets" (The Chief, Nov. 7) is for the most part a fine, thoughtful piece. Unfortunately, one statement sticks out like a sore thumb. That's when Isaac says the U.S. government has never "committed, countenanced or been complicit in genocide.
Apaches, Comanches, Iroquois, Cheyenne and members of other native American tribes might give him an argument on that. This land's population once consisted entirely of these people. They now make up 1.2 percent of the population. I don't believe there were any mass suicides in any of these tribes.
More recently, Israel slaughtered many in Gaza, mostly civilians, in a disproportionate response to a terror attack. Many have condemned this as genocide. Then-President Joe Biden made little attempt to stop this, declaring the U.S. 100 percent behind Israel. In response to pressure from the U.S.'s Arab allies, President Donald Trump pressured Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire.
When it comes to genocide, the U.S. is not guilt-free.
Richard Warren
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fcannisi
I would add that Isaac also claimed that the U.S. has never had concentration camps. I'm pretty sure that the Japanese Americans interred during WWII would disagree with that statement, as would those currently housed in migrant detention centers like "Alligator Alcatraz".
Come to think of it, "Indian" reservations were created by an act of Congress - the 1830 Indian Removal Act - intended to remove Native populations from European-populated areas and concentrate them, by force, to barren, inhospitable lands. The Reservations originally had border fences that Indigenous people were forbidden to cross.
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