Letter to the Editor
Now that Saddam has been executed it's time to declare victory and leave. Bush can tell Americans that the mission in Iraq was to have Saddam executed, get out the "Mission Accomplished" banner, celebrate our victory, and bring the troops home. I think this is as close to the illusion of victory in the Iraq war as we're going to get.
Letter to the Editor
Does Saddam deserve to die? Of course he does. After all, look at what he's done. He used chemical weapons against Iraqis. He tortured people at Abu Ghraib. He had an advanced domestic surveillance program. People were hauled off to secret prisons where people were tortured.
Now we have defeated him and even though we removed the evil tyrant, we used chemical weapons, and we tortured Iraqis at Abu Ghraib. Our government is surveillance us and we have a network of secret prisons where people are tortured. Now every day Iraqis torture each other and Americans collect the bodies on the streets as they kill each other in civil war.
For the last 1400 years since the dawn of Islam there has been war, and torture, and killing, and tyrants. Does Saddam deserve to die? Clearly he does. The middle east is full of people who deserve to die. War after all is about killing people who deserve to die. Saddam's execution is but another step in a 1400 year old tradition of vengeance against the evildoers and we hand this down as an example to the children of humanity. Our wars will continue for yet another generation.
If war is about the killing of those who deserve to die then what is peace? Is peace not the point where we stop killing those who deserve to die? So as we kill Saddam tonight I ask this question, "Is it worth it?" Especially when you consider that Iraq is actually worse off now, and that all the bad things that we killed Saddam for are still going on. Saddam is dead. Tomorrow Iraqis will kill and torture each other. As it has been for centuries, nothing has changed. The killing doesn't stop until we stop the killing.
Letter to the Editor
On the day of President Ford's death people in the news are praising his decision to pardon Nixon saying that Ford "Healed the nations woulds and brought Americans together after Watergate". I am not one of those who share that opinion. Nixon broke the law. He abused his power as president for his own personal gain. By pardoning Nixon he cheated America out of justice and a change to show the world the even the president isn't above the law. Instead America is left with a legacy the high ranking officials who break the law will be pardoned "for the good of the nation".
I wonder if we would be Iraq today and our current elected officials would flaunt the law the way they are today if Nixon had faced justice. We will never know if Ford was chosen because he made a promise to pardon Nixon if he was given the job. I believe that it was wrong for an unelected president to pardon the person who appointed him. Elected officials who break the law should face justice and I hope that we don't see justice cheated again by presidential pardons.