Letters to the Editor

Re: "Selling Iraq: Casualties of a lie," Tuesday:

Your left-handed praise of our Iraq war casualties sickens me. As you rightly note, they have sacrificed greatly. What you forget to mention is that their achievement is equally grand. Today, millions of Iraqi Kurds live in a free and prosperous society, where they were once murdered, tortured and imprisoned. Iraqis by the millions have participated in fair elections. Muslim extremists who, during the Clinton years, were left free to wreak havoc in Israel, Nigeria, Yemen and New York City, have been killed by the thousands, and the thuggish dictator Saddam Hussein, who wielded WMD against his own people and neighboring states, is dead.

Removing Hussein was the right thing to do; he gave us no choice but to invade. Once there, we could not leave until our mission of a more stable region had been achieved. Publications such as yours have desired our defeat for years and sought to hasten this eventuality by misrepresenting events on the ground. Clearly, if anyone has lied, it is you.

Michael Hudson

Pottstown

Harold Jackson's column Monday ("Eeyore isn't quite ready to cheer President Obama") said he was worried that Barack Obama will lose his race for the White House because of the impact of racism on the vote.

Jackson thinks many white Americans see African Americans as "trouble." Perhaps they do. But if you love Eeyore and Pooh, remember that Eeyore's fears always proved groundless in the face of Pooh's optimism and Piglet's and Roo's determination to make things go right.

Cheer up, Eeyore; Pooh will tell you that we've reached a moment in time when American Piglets, Roos, Tiggers, and Owls will do the right thing and let their basic optimism and better nature triumph over their fears.

Lynette McGrath

Philadelphia

I don't understand why the FBI is so upset about someone looking into Alycia Lane's private e-mail ("The e-mail probe: When anchors hit bottom," June 4).

The Bush administration is doing this daily, without warrants, to thousands of people. The FBI doesn't make a peep about that.

Jim Kippen

Wyndmoor

It is hard to believe that The Inquirer would devote the first page of the Arts & Entertainment section to a puff piece about Roman Polanski, a notorious, convicted child molester ("Flight of Polanski," Sunday).

We are told, sympathetically, that he ran before being sentencing for unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl because he feared the judge might give him a long prison term. And the story tells us that the judge was a nasty person who didn't like Hollywood types.

If Polanski ever comes back to America, I hope he gets the longest sentence the law will allow, but I am sure Hollywood will greet him and perhaps also The Inquirer.

John T. Fallon

Avalon

Has anyone ever computed the amount of fuel expended in air shows such as the one recently conducted at the McGuire Air Force Base Air Expo?

Air shows such as these are held all over the country strictly for entertainment and, no doubt, public relations for the armed services.

At a time when fuel usage is a critical concern and taxpayer dollars very dear, why don't we demand this frivolous activity be halted?

Jerome Witt

Philadelphia