LETTER: The pending war in Iraq

Editor,

Does it bother you that our country is being run by people hungry for war who have never risked their own lives in war (this includes our president)?

Does it bother you that they want to send our young and often poor to fight and kill and die in wars that these chickenhawks deem necessary?

Does it bother you that many of them (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, and others) have been planning American hegemonic wars long before reaching the White House?

Does it bother you that foreign leaders whose crimes our administration feels require war are often the few who are not captured or killed (such as Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War, or Osama bin Laden in the war on Afghanistan)?

Does it bother you that our young, patriotic soldiers are instead killing and maiming the young patriotic soldiers of Iraq, as well as their sisters, brothers, parents, grandparents, and children (families no different than our own)?

Does it bother you that our last Gulf War led to the deaths of more than 1,000,000 civilians due in large part to the bombing of Iraq’s infrastructure?

Does it bother you that your government of chickenhawks considers war (humanity’s worst crime) a tool of foreign policy?

Does it bother you that they (and in our names, all Americans) are helping create a more violent and dangerous world? It damn well should. Please call or write your representatives, and tell them to prevent this war.

Mark Ellisveteran