Tom Clancy on U.S. Involvement in Persian Gulf

Clancy expresses a thought with which I have long concurred. Yet, proceeding from there, we come to diametrically opposite conclusions. The thought: “America is not a piece of dirt stretching mainly from the Atlantic to the Pacific. More than anything else, America is a set of principles. . . .” He then says these principles demand that American forces be the world policemen, stamping out conflict wherever it arises.

The implicit assumption is that all future commanders in chief will only find “just” causes for sending servicemen to their deaths. This seems quite unlikely in view of our past history.

I, too, think that “America is a set of principles” that grew out of our Judeo-Christian tradition. According to that tradition, the abuse of anyone anywhere is an abuse of all of us. Despite service in two wars, I think wars sow the seeds of future wars in a never-ending cycle.

Rather we should extend a helping hand to eradicate the conditions in which wars are incubated (and that includes civil strife as well.)

FLOYD A. OLIVER, Los Angeles