Some Letters To The Editor...
(from The Bay Area's Mercury News)
Posted on Sat, Sep. 14, 2002
War talk centers on Iraq
PRESIDENT Bush's speech before the United Nations Thursday was an unqualified failure. You could read the body language of the delegates long before it was finished. Our enemies looked disgusted and our friends looked embarrassed. In the end, Bush sat with his teeth clenched to receive a cool smattering of applause.
The sad thing is that this speech is the cherry on the top of a 9-month effort to win international support. The result is absolutely no international support at all. The spin doctors have tried to squeeze a few notes of support from recent statements by our friends but the truth is that all they have said is they hope we don't invade Iraq.
Robert Ericson
Concord
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There is a critical factor of Bush's proposed unilateral regime change in Iraq that is seldom mentioned.
In a war scenario, Saddam Hussein will surely again launch some kind of attack on Israel -- missile or otherwise. It is to his advantage from a political point of view to involve Israel.
Israel says that if attacked by Iraq in a U.S.-launched war, it will counter-attack. Therefore, we face near certainty that the combatants will be America, Israel and Britain killing Iraqi Arabs and removing an Arab leader popular among Middle East masses.
Can anyone imagine this will not tremendously enrage people all over the Arab world? Can we dismiss such a development when leaders of Arab nations who now do our bidding have such a tenuous grasp on power?
The possibility of uncontrollable chaos in the Middle East will be very high. At a minimum, we will be creating thousands of new fanatics, seething with revenge, ready to slip into the U.S. to strike with ever more deadly means -- means that could make Sept. 11 a distant and minor memory.
William P. Gloege
San Jose
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THE economy is in the tank, the market is a bear, health costs are booming, health insurance coverage is busting, the infrastructure is rusting, many children have been left behind, educationally and otherwise. Business and church scandals leap forward along with the deficit, the elderly are still waiting for help buying prescription medicines, air travel security is a waste of time and a laugh, and ``homeland security'' is a belly-laugh.
Why am I not surprised that the White House resident wants to add another war to the unfinished wars in Afghanistan, with al-Qaida, bin Laden, et alii?
We have had little wars, big wars, and incursions -- Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Grenada, Iran, EI Salvador Panama, the Persian Gulf, Iraq -- with people dying, whenever a Republican president felt he needed to pull the wool over the voters' eyes as to what's going on here at home.
Patricia M. Regdon
San Jose
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