Saddam Hussein’s Open Letter to the West

Re “Iraqi Calls On World to Block U.S. Victory,” Oct. 31: Questions for Saddam Hussein, et al., who claim that U.S. policy is responsible for anti-American sentiment in the Arab-Muslim world:

Do you contend that your understanding of the general cause-and-effect relationship is absolute and inviolable? If yes, can you please explain it to the rest of us? Philosophers, logicians, clerics, mystics and many others have, for thousands of years, struggled with this issue with no palpable result. If no, what distinguishes you from the rest of the pointing fingers that dispense guilt among the guiltless?

Gary Smerek

Blue Jay, Calif.

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John Balzar (Commentary, Oct. 31) cites “peacekeeping,” “ending the tyranny of Saddam Hussein” and stopping “the world’s misery makers” as motives for U.S. military action abroad. While these may have been some of our motives, any objective study of history shows that our ruthless, expansionist foreign policy is based on lust for power and money as much as on any altruistic motive. We killed hundreds, including women and children, in the Somalia “ambush” that killed 18 of our own, and we were not there just to stop starvation.

We have not been timid. We have been bold and aggressive and, yes, at times merciful. I, for one, am glad that we stopped short of Baghdad. They surrendered, and we stopped killing the soldiers who were running from our helicopter gunships. We must face it: In addition to all the good we try to do and have done, and the greatness of our system, we also lead the world in misery-making.

William Herndon

Santa Monica

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Like father, like son. George H.W. Bush, Desert Storm: We didn’t get Saddam Hussein but we continue to blockade Iraq, essentially starving innocent civilians, including women and children, while Hussein develops a nuclear capability and builds an arsenal of poisonous weapons.

George W. Bush, Enduring Freedom: We can’t find Osama bin Laden but our “smart bombs” are blowing up Red Cross warehouses and destroying the infrastructure of an extremely poor, mostly illiterate nation whose citizens have not killed one American.

Bernard L. “Bud” Fink

Carpinteria

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President Bush should now leave off using the word “evil” to describe the terrorists. No one doubts that these madmen are diabolical. And though theologians may argue that “evil” is the technically correct term of art, this is not a nation ruled by clerics. We are represented and governed by secular officials whose public pronouncements must be free of the taint of metaphysics. The mullahs label us the Great Satan based on their radical dogma, but we must not respond in kind by hurling back pious epithets. To brand the terrorists as evil, rather than just our mortal enemies, assigns them a greater significance than they merit. They are not the manifestations of some cosmic force, but merely heinous criminals who must be coldly and clinically eradicated.

Bruce Mendenhall

Sunnyvale, Calif.