Protesting Against the War as Bombs Fall

As I stand on various L.A. street corners holding my peace flag, I and my fellow protesters are often confronted by angry and sometimes even physically threatening fellow citizens who believe that civil liberties are null and void once American bombs are being dropped on faraway cities. One hears in the media the often-repeated canard that once a war is in progress, it is our duty as Americans to shut up and wave the Stars and Stripes.

For years we have been asking the agonizing question, “Why did the German people stay silent when their government was flexing its muscle and committing atrocities?” Could it be that it was blind patriotism, a population supporting its government in wartime despite the moral reprehensibility of its acts?

America is engaged in an immoral war. If those of us who see the truth allow ourselves to be silenced, we would be as culpable as the German citizenry. I believe in the power of democracy, and the honking horns and peace signs that greet us as we stand on those corners prove that there is hope that this administration will not succeed in eradicating it.

Victoria E. Thompson

Sierra Madre

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I unequivocally disagree with all of the individuals who are going out on the streets of our cities and marching against the war in Iraq. I fully understand that they want their voices to be heard. I think what these people are doing is wrong, because they are being unsupportive. The war against Saddam Hussein’s regime is in progress and will not end by protesting against it. This war will end when Iraq is free.

And what these people don’t realize is that in these harsh times of war our American troops need their country’s support more than ever. We should not protest against what they are doing, because what they are doing is keeping us safe.

Edgar Hernandez

Westminster

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I am in ardent opposition to the war and, as I value the right to freedom of expression in this country, I have a bumper sticker on my car that reads, “How many Iraqi children did we kill today?” -- because whether the administration wants us to know it or not, that is what we are doing. One only has to look at the tonnage of bombs being dropped on Baghdad to know that.

Recently, a man walked past my car, read the sticker and said loudly, “How many Iraqi children? Not enough!” I have never been so horrified to be an American. Is this what we have come to as a people under this administration? Shame on us. Shame on us a thousand times.

Michele Greene

Los Angeles

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An April 3 letter begins, “I hope Bush and the military do not succumb to public sympathy for civilian casualties in Iraq.” Is this the level of barbarism to which we are descending? Civilian casualties are just fine? We can just kill whomever we want (since we are, after all, America). It is just fine to bomb homes, hospitals, street markets -- I suppose this is what this cynical person thinks. I guess their lives don’t matter. Oh, we are doing a fine thing by liberating the Iraqis. I guess we are liberating them from this mortal coil.

Peter Davison

Santa Monica

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It just doesn’t seem like a fair fight.

Laszlo Hodosy

Goleta

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For some liberals, the lives of certain Iraqis are more important than the lives of others. Pro-peace advocates seem to care much more for the innocent Iraqi lives that will be lost in the American bombing to oust Hussein than for the lives of the thousands of innocent Iraqis whom we know Hussein has killed in the past and the thousands more we know he will certainly butcher and torture in the future if he is left in power. Truth is, many liberals opposed to the bombing aren’t really antiwar ... they’re anti-Bush.

Don Garrison

Los Angeles