War Criminals Come in Countries of All Sizes

Now that Slobodan Milosevic faces prosecution on war crimes charges in The Hague, we should pause to wonder why our own officials should fare so much better. As Robert Scheer points out (Commentary, June 26), the U.S. military subjected civilian populations in Vietnam to massive “carpet bombing” and toxic defoliants under both Presidents Johnson and Nixon. The deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in Iraq resulting from bombing raids ordered by President Bush during and after the Gulf War and President Clinton’s bombing of civilians in Yugoslavia render them similarly eligible for prosecution. Support for death squads in Central America by the Reagan and the first Bush administrations claimed many thousands of lives. There is considerable evidence that the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy kept the Vietnam War going in spite of its horrendous ongoing cost of over 1 million civilian deaths.

Prosecuting only Milosevic gives rise to the perception that the World Court rubber-stamps the U.S. foreign policy establishment.

Lawrence Teeter

Los Angeles

Scheer is incorrect when he writes that “forcing [Milosevic] to trial while [Robert] McNamara and [Henry] Kissinger enjoy acclaim as elder statesmen is to desecrate the standard of moral accountability.” It is not the forcing of Milosevic to trial that is a desecration but rather our failure to force McNamara and Kissinger to trial. Milosevic, Ariel Sharon, McNamara, Kissinger: They should all be indicted and put on trial. The Hague is a big place . . . there’s plenty of room.

Ronald O. Richards

Los Angeles

I rarely agree with Scheer’s views but this time he reached me big-time. I have nothing but disgust for the likes of Milosevic. Scheer is right; McNamara, Kissinger and LBJ belong in the same category.

Gene Polito

Irvine