To the editor:

Historian Howard Zinn observes, “once war is made, an atmosphere is created and a momentum begins in which the worst horrors become inevitable.”

No one wants to believe our troops would commit atrocities, but they reportedly are. A press release from Christian Peacemaker Teams (a Brethren, Mennonite and Quaker program which placed a team of international observers in Iraq) said, “Since the outbreak of war, the team has paid visits to families in about 10 different neighborhoods whose homes were bombed, including a young man, just married, whose wife was decapitated by a missile strike on their wedding night (March 29).”

The team also observed a bombed children’s hospital in Rutba in which two children died, and remnants of a fragmentation bomb in Baghdad which hit a family flat killing 15 and injuring 50. These are just a few examples; the foreign press is filled with numbing statistics of civilian deaths caused by bombs, guns, and debilitated water facilities.

According to a London newspaper, The Guardian, reckless disregard for human life is now being questioned by senior British military officers appalled that U.S. Marines killed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, as they seized bridges outside Nassiriya (April 1). The Guardian also reported three British soldiers were sent home to face court martial for protesting the killing of too many civilians (March 31).

Let us call for an end to this brutal war. We must treat our troops with compassion — but we must not turn a blind eye to the atrocities committed by U.S. war policy.

Lora Jost, Lawrence