Do Not Issue Bush a Blank Check to Wage More Wars

Images of grateful Iraqis on the streets of Baghdad may cause some to renounce the peace movement and write President Bush a blank check for future wars.

This would be a terrible mistake. Bush’s policy -- supporting dictators he likes and waging unending war against those he doesn’t -- may defeat some oppressors in the short term. In the long term, it is feeding a downward spiral of destruction, rage and revenge and creating a legacy of trauma, pollution and poverty. Let us support the freedom of all people through peaceful means.

Joshua Hirsch

Santa Monica

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I find myself in the unhappy position of sometimes agreeing with John Balzar. But “It’s Something Exceptionalist,” his April 9 commentary on agreeing with our happy, optimistic president, only reminds me of the words of another president, Theodore Roosevelt, who said: “To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”

Bernard Gordon

Los Angeles

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In 1944, when Republican presidential nominee Thomas Dewey called Franklin Roosevelt a “tired old man,” was this an indication of a lack of patriotism on his part for asking the American public to change their commander in chief during wartime? I think not. Maybe House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Republican National Committee Chairman Marc Racicot would disagree, but then what do I know about patriotism? I’m a Democrat.

Robert A. Fruge

Cathedral City

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I am appalled by the suggestion by John Lee (letter, April 9) that “you just don’t say we need to change commander in chief at a time when our troops are fighting a war and in danger.”

If the U.S. could hold its regularly scheduled presidential elections in 1864 and 1944 -- when our troops were fighting (and dying in) the Civil War and World War II, respectively -- surely we can still hold a presidential election in 2004 during the “war on terror.” I hope Lee isn’t seriously suggesting, in the middle of a war supposedly being fought to bring democracy to Iraq, that in the name of national unity we should dispense with democracy at home.

Mark Gabrish Conlan

San Diego