‘We’ Did Not Fail Timothy McVeigh

Re “Killing Him Lets Us Off the Hook,” Commentary, June 12: “We failed Timothy McVeigh and . . . his execution fails us all.” Robert Scheer’s “we” does not include me. It does, however, include Scheer. If McVeigh was “us in our darkest moments” then Scheer switched off the lights. McVeigh learned the lessons of the radical movement of which Scheer was a prominent member: The government of the United States is a criminal enterprise, those who serve in the military are baby killers, and “off the pigs.” Scheer wants us all to be responsible for his follies. Sorry, Bob. You, not “all of us,” are among those responsible for McVeigh.

Leopold Rosenfeld

Beverly Hills

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Paul Conrad’s June 12 cartoon regarding McVeigh, captioned “A final and self-inflicted holocaust,” is blasphemy and an insult to those of us who are still around after surviving the real Holocaust.

Barbara Rona

Culver City

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So we learn in his final hours that what McVeigh feared the most was spending the rest of his natural life in prison. Given a choice, he’d pick execution. Perhaps Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and President Bush ought to revisit Uncle Remus. They didn’t punish McVeigh; they threw him in the briar patch. How many more will be executed before the hard-liners figure that out?

Michael Hirsh

Valley Glen

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As a human being and lawyer, I have struggled with the death penalty. What prevents me from being a proponent in practice is the fact that I am convinced we have executed innocent people and will continue to do so. However, McVeigh gave me a different way to look at it. I think it is important for society to say that there are people who have committed such heinous acts that they no longer have the right to be among us.

Michael Kosloff

Beverly Hills

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Now that McVeigh has been executed, we should officially increase the Oklahoma City bombing victims to 169.

Vasken Missirlian

Irvine

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McVeigh, a criminal beyond contempt, wishes to die and his wish is granted. Terminally ill persons, in pain and tormented by their affliction, ask to be put to sleep as was this poor excuse for a human being, and their wishes cannot, will not, be granted by a society that seems irrational at best. Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a giant of a man, sits in prison. Where the hell is justice?

Leonard A. Zivitz MD

Fullerton