Questions About the War

A question to President Bush: How do you sleep at night? A question to those who want to liberate the oppressed people of Iraq: Now that you see the pictures of the war casualties, military and civilian, are you still convinced we are liberating them, or are we subjecting them to more horror?

As we begin assigning contracts for rebuilding bridges, etc., before they are even destroyed, we can be sure they will be destroyed. I am heartsick over this unnecessary war.

Marty Wilson

Whittier

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The American and coalition death toll is rising. We’ve had copter crashes, at least one fragging, at least one aircraft shot down by our own missiles, Marines fired on and burned alive in an armored vehicle, soldiers killed and prisoners taken from a supply convoy. Now we’re starting to get real resistance, and the numbers are only going to increase. As a veteran of Vietnam (1st Marine Division, Da Nang 1970), I ask this question: Mr. President, do you still “feel good”?

Michael McConnohie

Burbank

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After a friend told me that she hopes President Bush does not realize any political gain out of the war, for she hates him so, I told her that I wish him the greatest amount of luck as is possible. In fact, even though I was 100% against the Iraq incursion, I am now solidly in his corner, praying that he receives divine guidance for all of his upcoming decisions. And I hope that he proves that my prior objections were unfounded -- that my worries were those of a man who was a Chicken Little. For if he succeeds, then the war will be brief, and the troops will come home soon with minimal casualties and dead.

Brian Shumake

South Pasadena

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A warm welcome as liberators? No. A prompt disintegration of organized resistance in Iraq? No. Support from Turkey? No. Growing support from our longtime allies for the coalition of the willing? No. A dastardly regime with “weapons of mass destruction” and the will to use them? Apparently not. Placing our trust in the Bush administration no matter what the evidence shows?

John Strain

Manhattan Beach

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Bush should not have to answer to the citizens of France or Russia or any other country; they did not elect him. We did. Although I hope that the war will be quick and humane, the world needs to remember that the president was elected to do what is best for Americans, and although he needs to be aware of the safety of the world, his primary responsibility is to the safety of the U.S. So far, he is doing an excellent job.

Jenni Varga

Newport Coast

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Re Ronald Brownstein’s March 24 column: Tenacity is stubbornness in pursuing a worthy goal. Obstinacy is stubbornness connected with stupidity, as in pigheadedness. Prime Minister Tony Blair and Sen. John McCain are evidently trying earnestly, but to no avail, to alert the president to the unintended and destructive consequences of his international and fiscal policies, respectively. What more needs to be said about a person who only through family name and political influence, rather than competence, obtained admission first to a university, then to a governorship and finally to a presidency?

David Perlman

Laguna Beach

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Where are the weapons of mass destruction we’ve been hearing about every time our commander in chief opens his mouth? One might think that, if the Iraqi army had such things, they might have come in handy.

Maybe the Iraqis are waiting until we get into Baghdad to use them, thus killing themselves and their families. Maybe they’re saving them for the next war. Maybe they were hiding them in those downtown office buildings we blew up. Or maybe, just maybe, the CIA just hasn’t delivered them yet.

Dom Stasi

Studio City

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Bush’s $75-billion spending measure for six months of war (March 25), plus his other supplemental defense spending measures and expanded baseline defense budgets, means that real defense spending is heading north of $600 billion a year.

May I suggest the administration call its new defense spending program “No Dollar Left Behind”?

Paul A. Myers

Claremont

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What is the price of doing nothing?

How many more 9/11s would this country have to endure? What would be the loss of American lives and impact on the worldwide economy? We have not had a single major act of terrorism since we wiped out the terrorist nests in Afghanistan. The message is clear to me.

Dean Schepis

Apple Valley