To the editor:

Now that Saddam Hussein is in U.S. custody, there certainly is reason to rejoice, for we have deposed an evil dictator. But, are we now going to capture every other dictator in the world? Some say that the possibly 400,000 bodies found in mass graves in Iraq now warrant an international war crimes tribunal, but didn’t we know he had killed those people back in the 1980s, when we supported every atrocity he committed?

If Hussein’s murder of his own people is enough reason for a U.S. invasion, why didn’t we invade Guatemala and capture all the ex-dictators we supported during the 1970s and ’80s, who killed over 100,000 Mayans? In fact, their worst ex-dictator, Efrain Rios Montt, has been the president of Guatemala’s Congress for the past five years. If not Guatemala, why not Colombia? Or Saudi Arabia? Or Turkey? Or Pakistan? Or China? Or Israel? Or a dozen other nations where we support state terrorism?

Why do the American people rejoice when we capture one tyrant who happens to be our enemy and not call for the capture of those tyrants that we support with billions of dollars in weapons every year? Oh yeah, I just answered my own question. But seriously, how could that be? After all, our motto is “liberty and justice for all.”

It is easy to exclusively accuse others of wrongdoing, but it is much more difficult to look in the mirror to examine what your own country has done.

Chris White,

Lawrence