To the editor:

I’ll not fault Bob Moore for linguistic inadequacies in his recent letter. He seemed mad, which stifles most anyone’s eloquence, but his anger has clouded his judgment.

Truth is the first casualty of war, so I’ll call into question his facts.

1) Right, Saddam isn’t a nice guy. That was OK when we were arming him against the Iranians. He gassed the Kurds, yes, with American chemicals, and our tacit approval.

2) Many people worldwide think there’s more terrorism committed in our name than any other. We’ve been training thugs to commit atrocities for decades, and Israel is seen as a brutal apartheid regime by the Arab world. There’s more evidence connecting 9-11 to the Saudis than Saddam. Why not invade them?

3) We’re subsidizing countries opposing the war? They’d have no voice without our influence? Look at our allies; we offered Turkey billions for use of their territory. Many other countries in the “coalition of the willing” are digging deep into our pockets. The opponents endure the xenophobic and jingoistic taunting from us, as well as empty threats of trade sanctions because they realize that this war is setting the stage for catastrophe.

When I exercise my duty as an American by protesting, I am openly grateful to the police for “insuring” my rights, and the only influence I am having on terrorism is that of trying to remove the injustices that fuel their hatred of Americans.

Bob Gent,

Lawrence