I was struck by the March 26 letter in the Willow Glen Resident opinion section, which had the headline "Wake up, people, and stop siding with Iraq."

As a patriotic person who feels obliged to work toward making America a bastion of justice, I am baffled by these continued pejoratives from the hegemony crowd that those who are antiwar are naive, softhearted, shortsighted and the like.

I continue to read the reports of the brutal civilian deaths of women, children and the elderly. These unfairly ended lives are labeled "civilian casualties."

In response I demand to know why we are at war. The reasons given are, "Come on, dude, we know Saddam has 'em even if we can't find 'em" and "You just know that Saddam and Osama bin Laden are buddies cause they're both Arabs," and "We're doing this to liberate all those poor Iraqi people" (who surprisingly seem to be dying in droves to prove that no such liberation from the American military is desired). There is nothing valid about any of these excuses.

Now, when I ask the naive question like why was Haliburton (a company paying Cheney his pension) staffing up to work overseas well in advance of the war or being given the contract, I get the sophisticated and defensive response that this is not about oil. To think it seemed the cause of the war was obvious—nepotism.

This war is not about freeing people from a tyrannical leader. If that were the reason we went to war, we'd be "freeing" people from so many more countries. It's not about Osama bin Laden—if it was we'd be focusing on Saudi Arabia, where the Sept. 11 hijackers came from. It's not about the threat of nuclear arms or we'd be focusing on India.

So until I hear concrete, provable, valid reasons for killing children and calling it "accidental casualties," I will continue to naively protest this war.

Oh, and to clarify, none of this is to condone or support an evil megalomaniac; rather it is to prevent such a leadership from forming here.

—Matthew Mengerink, Newport Avenue


Speaking our minds is democracy in action

Kimberly Kenyon and Gene Carrington repeat a line of thought that has become the mantra of the pro-war folks: Support our troops, support the president and stop protesting. This translates rather easily to "The only way you can help our soldiers fight for your freedoms is by not exercising them."

News bulletin, guys—democracy is a messy, noisy, bickering affair. The minute we stop arguing with each other is the minute we become a fascist state. Vive le difference!

—Michael Vaughn, El Rio Drive


This generation needs a refresher in history

Perhaps our schools are to blame for the young people's lack of understanding of how serious a threat the Iraqi regime is. They may not have studied in their history classes the world wars we fought in the last century. Many of them have joined the antiwar demonstrations, in their naiveté not knowing that these protests are led by radicals and haters of America.

I belong to what has been called "The Greatest Generation." We lived through World War II and knew what it was like to have a husband or brother or father in the thick of battle in Europe and the Far East. We learned what the Holocaust was all about.

The English and the French thought appeasement would solve the problem of Hitler. But they found out differently, in spades! They waited too long to take on this maniacal tyrant, and tens of thousands of people were killed in the fighting and in the concentration camps.

Is that what the United States should do? Wait until chemical and biological weapons rain on our cities and towns? You don't for a moment think Saddam Hussein, the butcher of Baghdad, would be concerned about how many Americans he would kill. He has asked his citizens to kill all Americans wherever they can find them. Now, let's be sensible.

There is a time for war and a time for peace. In order to have peace we must have war with the Iraqi regime. We must remove this threat from the world.

—Alma Taylor, Willow Glen