To the editor:

As a veteran of the first Gulf War, I saw the brutality of Saddam Hussein’s regime, including children gut-shot by the Republican Guard as it suppressed the post-war rebellions in southern Iraq. Since the war, 12 years of sanctions and diplomatic pressure have utterly failed to remove Saddam from power or restrain his terror. Against this backdrop, I find incomprehensible the motivation and goals of those who oppose the coalition’s war to liberate the Iraqi people.

The troops are committed and the war begun. The real possibility is that antiwar protests will stiffen the resolve of the Iraqi regime. Such a result will only intensify and lengthen the fighting, resulting in more deaths on both sides. Is that what they want?

In a broader sense, the protesters’ opposition to the war can only mean they favor Saddam remaining in power. France, with its economic ties to Saddam’s regime, and other nations thwarted prior efforts to stiffen sanctions. Obviously they would continue to do so, and any sanctions or diplomatic pressure in the future would be as ineffectual as in the past.

Therefore, there is no reasonable basis to believe that anything short of war can remove Saddam from power. Allowing him to remain in power would condemn an untold number of innocent Iraqi people to torture and death, and also present the very real risk of Saddam’s acquisition of weapons of mass destruction. Is this what they want?

Robert W. Ramsdell,

LTC, FA (Retired)

Lawrence