To the editor:

Despite the seriousness of the situation, I had to laugh when I read the letter in the Feb. 8 Public Forum in regard to Saddam dropping a smallpox-filled nuclear bomb on our doorstep. However, this only goes to show how confused and scared many people are today. When “threat levels” are raised to just short of an invasion taking place in America, but we are told to go about our business and not to worry, it is no wonder people can become confused and simply follow blindly along.

A symptom of this condition is becoming annoyed when people disagree with you. These warnings we have received in recent days remind me of the exercises we did as school children in the 1950s; placing your head between your knees in the hallway or under your desk will not protect you from a nuclear blast! Being a people of blind faith won’t protect us from the very real possibility of terrorist attacks here at home in retaliation to an attack of Iraq.

American citizens who have taken to the streets in protest of the war are not criminals. True, there have been a few arrests but in comparison to the numbers involved, they were few. Protesting is a part of our right to assemble and freedom of speech rights, not criminal activity. These “kinds of people” are your neighbors, co-workers, family members and, yes, veterans who fought in other unjust wars and lived to protest more of the same.

Doris Stine,

Lawrence