Paterson on Refusing to Go to Saudi Arabia

I separated from the Marine Corps under honorable conditions after four years of active duty in August, 1989. My battalion is currently in Saudi Arabia, and I know that I would have gone with few reservations had this crisis occurred during my enlistment. My sense of duty, primarily to my fellow Marines, would have demanded it.

Yet I cannot discount some of the points made in Cpl. Jeffrey Paterson’s column (Commentary, Oct. 9) as lame rationalizations to cover up cowardice. Paterson is right when he speaks of the “neocolonial condescension” that characterizes our military presence in the Philippines and, I suspect, in other developing nations.

Paterson is also correct when he reminds us that our government played a major role in equipping the Iraqi war machine during its conflict with Iran. We justify our present military policy in the Middle East as a response to the violation of Kuwaiti sovereignty. That is noble. Yet, like Paterson, I would like to know where the outcry was when Saddam Hussein decimated his Kurdish population.

Unlike Paterson, I would have participated in Operation Desert Shield in order to be there for my fellow Marines. Yet I know that those who call for war from Congress, the Pentagon and the pulpit are dead wrong. Any blood drawn in a conflict with the Iraqis will be on their hands and not Hussein’s.

CHRISTOPHER P. NEBLETT

Riverside