When writing an editorial for publication, the somewhat dubious desire is to have feedback from the community on not only your accuracy and the thought put into the column, but in essence the reader’s agreement or disdain for your position.

I wrote about the July 12, 2007 attacks a few weeks ago, explicitly stating a desire to remain objective on the issues at hand and not to outwardly blame the military or government for the attacks, only their consequent sweeping of the video and conflict under the rug. In response I’ve heard everything from “Thank you for writing this” to “You are a terrible journalist and a liar.”

Fair enough.

In print, a few veterans have responded that I have no idea of the horrors of war and that the average citizens should never have to know such things, that such knowledge is their sacrifice and honorable distinction. I call malarkey. Sure, I don’t agree with our current occupation anymore than I’d agree with the Nazis invading Poland. But to be clear, given the proper conflict, i.e. one not promulgated by an energy crisis or a personal grudge, I would happily serve and give the final measure if it were for a cause that warranted such a sacrifice. But I would want the world to know about it, all the same.

The Nazi reference is not meant to indicate we’ve gone the way of national socialism (no matter what the Tea Party might say while they’re lacing the Kool-Aid), but rather to emphasize that at times in America’s history we’ve been legitimately crucial in thwarting a terrible threat to the security of the world.

Now I feel it would be prudent to give some constructive feedback to one of our own columnists, who felt so called (likely by his God, the one who would smite all Islamofascists) to call my critique of the situation “factually incorrect” and went on to personally attack a Beacon reader who supported my stance by calling him “craven” for “(undermining) our war against Islamofascists” and later denounced him as anti-American.

This particular columnist has made it his mission to document a fabricated crusade throughout the semester in portraying America as a Christian nation who is waging righteous war against an “Islamofascist” area of the world. First, the person should know he is quoting vehement atheist Christopher Hitchens in such a calculation and thus not defending his ultra-Catholic worldview in using such terminology. Second, we are not a Christian nation and most certainly not a Catholic nation but rather a ever-churning gumbo of every world religion, whose national identity is not reliant on any god but on the will of its people.

America is defined by the freedoms we espouse to the world in so much political rhetoric by claiming to be singular in its widespread allowances of faith, diversity of populace and ability to pursue a joyous life in almost any way we see fit (Dahmer and Madoff need not apply). And that’s all fine, but those freedoms were meant to dissuade the prejudices of those such as my colleague and instead encourage us to open ourselves to the experience allowed by multi-cultural co-existence.

But we are straying from the point at hand. I don’t mean to unleash some polemic against one isolated and incredibly confused individual. No, really, I just want to address the validity of a few statements made in the critical responses to my previous column.

The damning element in the video in question for me was the demeanor of the soldiers involved and their errors in judgment. Relative to the identification of an RPG through thermal imaging, which I was misquoted as calling a telephoto lens, I would say it could have been a camera tripod, whose “small point” would recede when the tripod was collapsed. The telephoto lens can be clearly identified prior to the initial sortie as Namir Noor-Eldeen looks around the corner of a building.

And finally, a reader’s letter to the editor in the April 26 issue of The Daily Beacon made an attempt to negate Waqas Ahmad’s opinion on grounds of ignorance and used such scare tactics as implying he should visit wounded soldiers and military cemeteries to appreciate the horrors of war and the sacrifice of military personnel. This dances a treacherous tango in the way of opinions, as we were first told by John Dunham that civilians should be spared such atrocities. So what’s it going to be, full disclosure or Eisenhowerian neutrality of opinion and naïveté toward the world?

Dear reader, you tell me.