To the editor:

It’s getting tiring to read the continuing letters from locals who appear to have more expertise in fighting terrorism than the FBI, CIA, State Department, Defense Department, and the National Security Agency combined. It’s bad enough that these people apparently have better ideas on how to deal with Iraq than our officials in Washington. What’s worse, some Journal-World readers imply they even know the mind of Saddam Hussein.

In his recent letter, Robert J. Kaspar feels Hussein is not suicidal and is unlikely to nuke either the United States or Israel. Worse still are the anti-American sentiments expressed by Bunker Clark, who suggest that the U.S. has done something to cause such hate, resulting in 9-11. Then we’ve got the Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice, which advocates little more than economic sanctions on Iraq (as though they’ve worked over the past 10 years).

Why is it that some fail to recognize there are evil people in the world? It is pure, unadulterated evil that led sick minds to attack us last year. History shows that civilization always pays a price for failing to confront and crush evil. Stop blaming 9-11 on “something we did.”

Steve Johnson,

Ottawa