Editorial Criticizes U.S. Policy in Iraq

Your June 27 editorial, “The Disaster of Failed Policy,” is one of the most wide-ranging, thoughtful and elegant dissections I’ve seen of the madness of King George’s policy of attacking oil-rich Third World countries that pose no threat to us.

I’m outraged and angered that our troops have been killed, Iraq despoiled and the tinderbox of the Middle East inflamed just so the arrogant rogue in the Oval Office can reward his campaign contributors and gratify his supporters on the evangelical right (this is a crusade, remember).

Since the radical Republican reactionaries who control Congress will not impeach our out-of-control tyrant, it will fall to the American people in November to perform electoral surgery on the leader of this elective war.

Jon Krampner

Los Angeles

Times editors have lost their nerve. They forget the U.S. didn’t start this conflict. The terrorists did. Now that we’ve decided to fight back and are going through a difficult time, you, like most cowards, want to cut and run. You criticize our every move, yet remain mute to the atrocities committed by the terrorists. You have no honor. My only hope is there aren’t too many like you.

Robert S. Rodgers

Culver City

You conclude by saying that in the future the U.S. needs humility. Right on, but I think a good dose of repentance might well come first. We have invaded a small, weak country under false pretenses; killed some 12,000 innocent civilians and mutilated God only knows how many more; lost some 800 U.S. soldiers; destroyed much of Iraq’s infrastructure and our own economy; made a travesty of human rights, international law and our own Constitution; increased the threat of terrorism and left the rest of the world wondering who will be next.

Those of us who supported this disaster, as well as those of us who let it happen, should be on our knees.

Jim Parkhurst

Bridgeport, Calif.

Where The Times sees a glass half empty, I see it half full. Would that it have explained instead how the U.S. should have responded after 9/11 to the scourge of terrorism festering and skulking in the Middle East, exported to the U.S. mainland in the form of innocent immigrants seeking pilot’s licenses, funded, supported and encouraged by a thug who after a decade of resistance to U.N. sanctions targeted missiles at U.S. aircraft and arrogantly refused to account for known stockpiles of WMDs.

President Bush, through great courage, seized an unpopular and potentially politically disastrous opportunity to advance a noble and difficult end, with long-term policy objectives of exterminating the menace of state-sponsored terrorism, promoting democracy in the Middle East and freeing the U.S. of the certain and growing threat of terrorist activity here at home.

While The Times frets over the predictable deadly cost of war and the occasional lapses in conduct by a few reprobates, its myopic focus misses the big picture.

Had America taken the easy path, acquiescing to the failed deterrence policy of U.N. threats and the inaction of the global community, Iraq would remain a nation under a dictatorship funding, supporting and encouraging terrorist organizations, nations sponsoring terrorism and nations indifferent to terrorism. Mistakes in wartime are inevitable.

The fact that much of the European Union won’t lend a hand only proves how useless friends can be when they are most needed.

The successes, which certainly outnumber the failures, that go unreported and unseen are never considered in The Times’ calculus. What Bush has shown is that the moral leadership required to do the right thing is no guarantee of a second term in office and will not win the endorsement of those who believe America’s security and its freedom are guaranteed without a price.

William J. Becker Jr.

Los Angeles

Kudos to The Times for outlining in compelling terms exactly how the Bush administration has failed the American people and the entire world in its ill-conceived and arrogant war on Iraq.

We are the victims of this war as clearly as the Iraqis, robbed of our civil rights and our financial stability by a government clearly out of control. Let us unite to take our country back from the fanatics and restore honor to Old Glory. Our America deserves no less.

Gloria Van Gieson

North Hills

Bravo on your excellent editorial on Iraq. When I think of the president and vice president conducting this war I am reminded of the Laurel and Hardy line: “It’s another fine mess you’ve got us into.”

Carl E. Coan

Calabasas