Soros’ Prescription for Iraq

In “Playing Into Their Hands” (Opinion, April 4), George Soros instructs the Bush administration on how to better manage world affairs, specifically in Iraq and Afghanistan. Though Soros, a financial fund manager, may find it perplexing that current strategic military policy isn’t being altered to suit him (a la Richard Clarke), I, for one, am hopeful that Soros’ theories will never resonate beyond cafe society.

The defeatism that seems to have so intoxicated some of our citizenry is in striking contrast to what many of us saw overseas. Afghans with whom we served viewed our partnership in overwhelmingly optimistic terms, as well as the last, best hope for their country. Changes in Iraq are no less revolutionary. Indeed, I did not realize how bleak the situations in Afghanistan and Iraq were until I returned home and bought a newspaper.

Capt. Rocco M. Barnes

19th Special Forces Group

Los Alamitos

“War” is indeed a wrong label for combating terrorism. By calling what should be an essentially crime-fighting operation a war, the Bush administration has conferred the dignity of being a worthy adversary to a group of stateless criminals. In return, the administration has created a false facade of a permanent state of war in this nation and grabbed the extraordinary power of curtailing civil rights, which is normally reserved only for a wartime president.

In fact, President Bush calls himself a “war president” in his campaign for reelection. But what war? There is no war other than what he has created and continues creating, as demonstrated in Iraq. How long is this house of cards going to last?

Chol W. Kim

Los Angeles

I find Soros’ views hypocritical and politically self-serving. If we applied the same “logic” that Soros advocates, then the argument could easily be made that had the U.N., our allies and the rest of the world’s leaders presented a unified front against Saddam Hussein, his sons and the tyrannical Baathists in Iraq, the outcome might have been vastly different. Instead, politics and power came first, and it now appears that Soros and his ilk, ironically, are playing into Hussein’s hands.

Hunter Lynne

Los Angeles

Soros’ knowledge of the global context within which the United States enacts its policies is irrefutable. His 2002 book “On Globalization” illuminated many of the social and economic forces that engender the type of fanaticism we face today. His dark vision of the century ahead should remind those of us who have lived with the global conflicts of the 20th century that it was a terrorist act in Sarajevo in 1914 that ignited World War I. Terrorism can have far-reaching consequences in this new century as well. There is an action that may help mitigate the disastrous scenario Soros foresees as the result of the United States’ ill-considered military response to international terror networks: Repudiate the Bush administration and its policies. The voters of Spain have shown us the power of the ballot box to turn national policies around.

Celia Carroll

Santa Monica

Billionaire Soros may have a point that invading Iraq does not necessarily bring terrorists to justice, but his assertion that the U.S. is creating a “vicious circle of escalating violence” and is thwarting international cooperation as a solution is dubious. What do you call the loss of six lives and 1,000 injured in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the loss of 17 sailors aboard the destroyer Cole in 2000 and the loss of more than 3,000 citizens in the 9/11 attacks? Isn’t this a vicious circle of violence?

Wayne Lusvardi

Pasadena

Soros has expressed many of my concerns and pointed out others that help explain the dread and foreboding I feel when I consider where the Bush administration has led us and the consequences we are now suffering -- and those that obviously lie ahead. We need a new president who is able to lead us out of this awful mess, and it is time for a president who will promise to bring the troops home. It worked for President Nixon!

John Gardiner

Costa Mesa