Exercising the freedom troops fight for

Re: “Professor’s ‘troops’ remark stirs up anger,” Aug. 30 news story:

Can anyone provide any evidence that peace activists who opposed the invasion of Iraq have called for the dismissal or censure of the great majority of tenured professors at Virginia Tech and elsewhere who supported actions that proved to be based on lies?

All those professors who agreed with the Bush administration were wrong, and would have been publicly discredited were the mainstream media not so busy covering its own complicity.

Tech professor Steven Salaita has the right to express his opinion, not just because I agree with him, but because academic freedom, like freedom of the press, is essential if people are to make rational decisions.

With our basic freedoms under attack by an administration so secretive that it punishes whistleblowers more harshly than war criminals, can we call ourselves a democracy?

GEORGE HUNTER
ROANOKE

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