Two views of the president

Re “Al Qaeda on the brain,” editorial, July 30

You do a great disservice by again spouting your anti-President Bush lines. There is no greater threat to our democracy and way of life than the threat of major terrorist attacks by ultra-extremist Muslim groups sworn to our destruction. They say they want to kill us, and I believe them; after all, they have a pretty good track record. Remember 9/11 and the attacks on our democratic allies in Europe? Thank heaven we have a strong president defending the U.S.

Mark E. Buchman

Los Angeles

If you buy the president’s reasoning on Al Qaeda in Iraq, then Osama bin Laden first used U.S. airliners to kill almost 3,000 innocent people on 9/11 -- shame on him; he then used a U.S. president and his administration to kill 3,600-plus brave citizens in Iraq -- shame on us.

Owen Husney

Sherman Oaks

Bush has been waging a campaign of disinformation aimed at convincing the uninformed and gullible among us that Al Qaeda is our main enemy in Iraq and that, unless we continue to shed our blood on Iraqi soil, we’ll be fighting them on American streets. Despite intelligence to the contrary from his top military commanders and the intelligence community, Bush has been saying there are direct links between Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Al Qaeda forces in Iraq. This isn’t the first time Bush has ignored or skewed intelligence reports to fit his private agenda. His preferred strategy is to repeat a lie over and over until people begin to believe it. Unfortunately, the group that is most vulnerable to his disinformation is our military-age youth.

Tom Turner

Dana Point