Torture Will Not Open the Hearts of Iraqis

So Thomas Hamill is free (“U.S. Civilian Hostage Safe After an Apparent Escape,” May 3). Let us rejoice.

And how was he treated? Did his captors hold him in a 3-by-3 cell, naked, for days on end? Did they bury him up to his neck in the desert? Did they burn him with chemicals? Humiliate him? Sodomize him? Confine him in a dog kennel? Urinate on him? Torture him with electric shock? Call him an “enemy combatant” and claim legal grounds to hold him forever?

No, according to Hamill, he was treated well. We are the ones who have been accused of all those abuses -- we, the Americans and our coalition partners, bringers of liberty and opportunity. We are the ones who have reopened the “rape rooms” and the “torture chambers” that our president seems to take such relish in describing. Are we proud?

David Schaberg

Irvine

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After watching the gruesome images of the treatment of the Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, which are now being widely shown around the Islamic world, I have a suggestion for our present administration: Inserting glow sticks in the rectums of men is not the right way to get inside the heart and mind, especially given the fact we are trying to win them over.

President Bush needs to appear on Iraqi television, as well as Al Jazeera, and tell them of our shame. An apology might do more to win the battle of hearts.

Dodd M. Sheikh

Redondo Beach

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The Iraqi prisoner scandal only confirms an old axiom: Once you unleash the dogs of war, spontaneous vicious acts occur. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Sen. John Kerry know this because they’ve been there. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, political advisor Karl Rove and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz have only seen it in the movies.

Mike Roddy

Topanga

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I do not understand the condemnation of the soldiers who are allegedly abusing Iraqi prisoners. Like so many before them, they are “only following orders.” Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

Andrew Marsh

Los Feliz

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“Books Depict Bush as Instinct-Driven Leader” (May 3) confirms my suspicions that many of the decisions that were made that led us into the preemptive invasion of Iraq were made on the fly. It appears as if the president and this White House were saying, don’t confuse us with facts, we have already made up our minds.

Simplistic solutions to complex problems are usually the product of simple minds. Unfortunately, the results of these ill-conceived decisions must now be borne by our military.

William V. Evans

Torrance

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“Irrelevant” has been one of the favorite words of the supporters of the war in Iraq: The U.N. risked becoming irrelevant if it did not toe the American line on Iraq; national security advisor Condoleezza Rice allegedly dismissed every important reason not to go to war as irrelevant, and so on.

This, however, brings us to something that truly lacks relevance, Lawrence J. Korb’s comparative analysis of the mistakes the U.S. has committed in Vietnam and Iraq (Commentary, May 3). He ignored the most fundamental mistake common to both conflicts: the choice made by the U.S. to get involved in the first place. All other mistakes are only a subset of that initial error in judgment. And the only way to begin correcting our mistake in Iraq is to do what Richard Nixon finally accepted as inevitable in Vietnam. We should cut and then we should run.

William F. Giuliano

Los Angeles