To the editor:

Obsession. Scare-mongering. Secrecy. Imperialist reveries. The unbridled desire of this administration to go to war with Iraq is draining our resolve and balance. The president sleeps well, we are told, while the rest of us toss and turn and wonder if Code Orange is going to Code Red when we rise. I suspect President Bush sleeps well because he has a simple, absolutist formula for understanding the world — good vs. evil — and he has little visceral idea of the potential maelstrom that may be let loose when we invade Iraq.

Saddam Hussein is an unabashed tyrant, a murderer of his own people. But he is surrounded by three strong militaries (Iran, Israel, Turkey); he has been something of a tinhorn since 1995 when many of his weapons were destroyed or dismantled. Does he support terrorists? What enemy of the United States doesn’t?

Since World War II, constructive regime change rarely has been wrought by intervention from foreign powers. Most often it is through native, widely supported popular movements from within. The Soviet Union fell because of mostly nonviolent “people’s wars.” We have done little to pursue other diplomatic, economic, indigenous avenues of change.

Since 9-11, Bush has fixated on regime change through war, ignoring other possibilities that might avert the slaughter of innocents, the death of American troops, and the blooming of thousands of terrorists. Ironically, but not surprisingly, his zeal for war has encourage this administration to ignore the many unresolved problems — economic and social — that afflict his own people.

Dennis Saleebey,

Lawrence