Letter to the editor:
It is planned to send more troops to Iraq. None of this had to be. But perhaps we are trapped now. It is known that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and did not have weapons of mass destruction. Being loyal citizens, Americans fell for something that led to disaster. Now that Iraq has broken wide open, can we leave those people to cope with a horrendous civil war? This administration abandoned diplomacy from the start, rejecting discussion with countries and interests it does not like and even refusing to listen to friends. It was going to make an example by force. Not only did the breaking open of Iraq result in civil war, it created a hatred that radicalized people from around the region, many of whom have no doubt now found their way into Iraq. And Iraq’s old enemy Iran, has been strengthened by what we have wrought. Our government says more than 1 million Iraqis have become refugees in their own country and more than a million have fled from Iraq. One study suggests as many as 600,000 people have been killed since the invasion with thousands more maimed. No one knows the number of children made parentless. And now the infant government of Iraq is being blamed for not controlling things. Is nothing known about how long fundamental nation building takes, especially when it is at odds with established culture? It is infuriating that we have been trapped and may have to go on for years with something that never needed to be.
Donovan Russell
Rockefeller Road
Moravia
