Protesting War and Protesters

Re “Peace Activist Takes a Stand in Favor of Persian Gulf War” (Jan. 25): I don’t know when or where Doug Friz was a peace activist. But he is flying under false colors to use that designation now.

To assert that our government is acting out of concern for world and moral law is naive and absurd. There are countless ongoing violations of world and moral law that we choose to ignore, and some of the violations are our own.

Why does Friz believe that all possible alternatives to war were exhausted? What is his evidence? There was abundant testimony that sanctions were working. Does he know that Iraq has legitimate territorial and economic grievances against Kuwait that could have been subject to negotiation?

If we can’t negotiate with robbers, why is it OK to give them arms? Or didn’t we know that Saddam Hussein wasn’t very nice when we were feeding him arms to fight Iran?

But--wait a minute--didn’t Bush denounce Assad of Syria as a terrorist? And now they are bedfellows? I’m confused. We can’t negotiate with robbers, except maybe sometimes, but we can negotiate with terrorists anytime? Sometimes? Once in a while?

Who are these most wise and caring people in the world that Friz refers to? He is referring to four nations on the United Nations Security Council. The General Assembly, where the whole world is represented, would never have given its support to this war. That sounds more wise and caring to me. We refuse to honor and support the U.N. when it won’t do our bidding, then use its name when it serves our purpose.

I’m sick of talk about our leaders making “tough and hard decisions.” What’s tough and hard is having no say over the decisions made by powerful, rich men that your life is expendable. It is the poor and powerless, the weak and innocent, children and the old who will bleed, break and die. That’s worse than tough and hard. That’s terror.

And it’s so comfortably far away from Costa Mesa.

CONNIE HADDAD, Yorba Linda