Bush Visits U.S. Troops

The scene of President Bush’s Thanksgiving meal, a stop-watched, public relations maneuver designed to pump Americans’ hearts for support, left me furious, frustrated and less than grateful (Part A, Nov. 23).

Lives have been shattered and families torn apart all because of a sham for “the American way of life,” a life, which according to public energy reports, would not use even one drop of Kuwait’s oil were our cars 2.5 miles per gallon more efficient. The facts are simple, but bear repeating. Our dependence on foreign oil is self-inflicted. But rather than develop an energy program that would reduce demand for Arabian oil and leave Saddam Hussein and other oil-rich nations dumbfounded, we shoot from the hip and the mouth.

Our heavy influx of troops and our continued insistence in O.K. Corral-type thinking require nothing of the Arab world to solve its own problem. With our attention and monies drawn to the shifting Sahara sands, we can once again ignore the fact that as a nation we are rotting and dying from the inside out while Congress plays dialing for dollars in election fervor.

When there is a grim, horrific rise of child abuse in my own Los Angeles area back yard; when we now rank 20th in infant mortality; when 30% of American teen-agers will not finish high school; when homeless shelters around the nation are feeding record numbers of people; when $500 billion-plus will be stolen from American pockets to cover up the savings-and-loan greed, how dare we play war games over the price of oil?

As a nation, our true Thanksgiving can only come with the return of troops and a return to our senses.

EILEEN McDARGH

Laguna Niguel