Reality about the surge

Re “Surge doesn’t equal success,” Opinion, Feb. 22

Thank you, Michael Kinsley, for illuminating the hypocrisy regarding the eternal fiasco in Iraq. The U.S. government and, yes, the American people continue to sacrifice our soldiers, and Sen. John McCain casually asserts our presence in Iraq for up to 100 years. Washington remains in the dark. How sad that the value of our troops has taken a back seat for so long for so little in return. We not only suffer for a new administration but for a resurgence in the value of human life with appropriate and constitutional protection.

Ronald L. Wallace

Sherman Oaks

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To say that a reduction in violence is because of the surge, Kinsley commits the well-known logical fallacy that whatever happens after an event (less violence) has been caused by a prior event (the surge). Less violence instead has other possible causes: ethnic cleansing before the surge, Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr’s truce and/or Sunni dissatisfaction with Al Qaeda.

Michael Haas

Los Angeles