STOP JUDGING!

In her column “Time for Us to Go” (December 7), Mary
Anna Towler quoted some mothballed ex-general who made two racist, inane, and
outrageous statements.

The first statement was that “there will be no democracy in Iraq.”
Considering that the Iraqis have braved even death to vote three times, this
statement is demeaning to the Iraqis and belittles their courage and
aspirations. Other Islamic countries such as Turkey
and Indonesia
are democracies, so why not Iraq?

The other statement was that Iraq
will have either “a Sunni-Baathist-secular tyranny”
or a “Shiite-IslamicRepublic
tyranny.” One can only assume that the ex-general is stupid and Ms. Towler is
totally naรฏve. Twenty-five percent of Iraq’s
population are Kurds. Another 5 percent are Christian
and other minorities. Thirty to 50 percent of both Sunnis and Shiites are
secular. Ninety-eight percent of the population hates the Baathists
with a passion. Add the percentages and see if the numbers don’t add up to a
possible secular coalition of these forces running Iraq.

Rumsfeld and his ilk have made a
mess of Iraq,
but the nonsense espoused by people who probably can’t even find Iraq
on the map is infuriating. We want our forces out of Iraq,
fine. But stop passing judgment on a people about whom you know nothing.

Maan R. Al-Ubaidi, Culver Road, Rochester

ROOTING FOR DEFEAT?

Shame on you, Ms. Towler!

You have joined the crowd of the most hysterical and
spiteful of America
bashers (“Time for Us to Go,” December 7), but time is not working for you.
Much to your disappointment, I am sure, the news from Iraq
confirms that the Democratic Party is losing another election.

You took your cue from General Odom, the latest official of
past administrations with an ax to grind, to endorse a shameful and criminal
course of action. Just like Richard Clarke or Lawrence Wilkerson, General Odom
suffers from the sulking envy of somebody whose advice was not followed by the
current administration. And to get back at it, he doesn’t care if he undermines
the morale of our brave fighting men and women.

Odom is the co-author, among many other things, of a book
titled “America’s
Inadvertent Empire.” While I tend to agree that America’s empire has been less
the result of conscious decisions by its political leaders than of the powerful
influence of its ideas of political liberty and the immense wealth created by
its regime of individual free enterprise, I have the feeling that the general
thinks we are also an “inadvertent” democracy.

No, Ms. Towler, we are what we are because of the very
conscious decisions made by the framers of our republic, and General Odom is
just the last of a long line of smug defeatists and elitists who thinks that
our political principles can work only with white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants:
Wasp’s. And you agree with him that Iraqis are just too stupid to understand
freedom and democracy.

I repeat: shame on you!

Follow the logic of your own argument, Ms. Towler. You say
we went into Iraq
under false pretenses. Let us just stipulate, for the sake of argument, that
you’re right: Bush lied. Meaning he knew there were no WMD’s (real or
potential) in Saddam’s possession.

So what does he do? He attacks Iraq,
topples Saddam, unleashes his search teams all over the country, and proves to the world that he was lying!
What did I miss, Ms. Towler?

What I don’t understand is why Democrats, once again, seem
to think that rooting for America’s
defeat (because that’s what you are doing, although you dare not say it in as
many words) will result in electoral advantages for them. I would submit to you
that our defeat in Vietnam
(that’s what it was, and your political pals rooted for it) signaled the
beginning of the shift of this country from New Deal liberalism to Republican
conservatism.

Italo Savella, FernwoodPark, Rochester

Mary Anna Towler’s response: I do not believe, and have never
said, that Iraqis are “too stupid to understand freedom and democracy.” I also
do not believe that the United States
can impose democracy on another country. Was Saddam Hussein a terrible,
torturing ruler? Absolutely. The Bush administration did not tell us the
purpose of the war was to give the Iraqi people democracy, however. It said the
purpose was to protect Americans.

Did Bush lie about Iraq’s
“weapons of mass destruction”? Was he deceived? Or did he make a terrible
mistake in judgment? Maybe we’ll never know. What we do know is that he ignored
plenty of advice that the WMD reports were shaky at best.

Is a freely elected, democratic government better than the
reign of a tyrant? Of course. Do we want to invade every country whose people
suffer from a terrible tyrant? You tell me. And tell me which rulers are the
worst, which people suffer the most horribly. Should we invade Syria?
Sudan? Iran?
North Korea? In
how many countries will our brave young men and women die as we spread democracy
throughout the world? Or are the Iraqis the only people who warrant our concern
and our lives?

I pray that the result of this misguided, poorly planned
invasion is a stable democratic government. I am terribly afraid that it won’t
be. And I continue to believe that our invasion of Iraq
has made us less safe, not more.

IMPOSING VALUES

I too heard the NPR piece by retired general
William Odom and felt that his view fits the facts as we know them better than
anyone else I have heard (“Time for Us to Go,” December 7). I thought you
summarized and added to Odom’s piece nicely.

Adding to this sentiment is the December 7 NPR story,
“Concern Grows over Iraqi ‘Honor Killings.'” Iraqi women who are
abducted stand a high chance of being killed by their families if they are
released, because they have become “defiled.” This is not in keeping
with Islam but rather with sexist tribal mores regarding the family’s honor.

The interview focused on a family that had their daughter killed
because she had been abducted and possibly raped, bringing shame on the family
in their eyes. The father and brother couldn’t pull the trigger, so they had a
cousin do it for the “good of the family.” The murderous cousin has a
law degree.

As a father and a brother, I find this so reprehensible that
it is mind-boggling. Aside from the revolting nature of the crime, it drove
home for me that a sizeable number of the Iraqi people have a value system very
different from ours. This type of incident points out that the notion that the
West will somehow set up egalitarian and just institutions is just a pipe
dream. We have no future in that place and should pull out as soon as
reasonably possible.

Lawrence Jones, Spruce Avenue, Rochester

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This article appears in Dec 21-27, 2005.