Viewpoints
Was war with Iraq our nation's
only course?
By Sam Osborne
April 03, 2006
Monday
Letter to the editor:
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice admits that thousands of "tactical"
mistakes have been made in the conduct of the Iraqi war.
With mistakes thus defined, this plentiful number would not include
President George W. Bush's lack of forethought, beyond one-upping
his father by toppling Saddam Hussein, prior to his sending our
troops to be mired in the fourth year of this military misadventure.
Bush's broken-record mantra of justifications, "The world
is better off without Saddam Hussein," has left him sounding
like the perpetual delinquent that thinks he can talk his way
out of anything. If he can find a silver lining in a manmade
disaster of his doing, surely he might even detect great purpose
in a catastrophe of Mother Nature's making.
To wit, if a tsunami had swept up the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers
and had gotten Saddam Hussein, but in the bargain also took the
lives of thousands of Iraqis, killed over 2,000 of our troops,
permanently maimed untold more, seriously damaged our nation's
hard-gained reputation, and cost our people billions upon billions
of dollars, we might expect George W. Bush to place much value
in the devastating wall of water and to take credit for its course.
He talks and talks and turns a deaf ear to the damning question;
was war with Iraq our nation's only course? The answer
is no.
When presidents of past were faced with the threatening march
of Communism from a USSR bristling with real weapons of mass
destruction and with agents secreted throughout the world, these
leaders opted for containment of this threat until it inevitably
fell of its own weight. These courageous Commanders in
Chief believed in the indomitable spirit of our people and the
superiority of our free way of life.
Sam Osborne
West Branch, IA - USA
About: Sam Osborne is a retired psychology professor.
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on Viewpoints are the opinions of the writer
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sitnews.
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