To the editor:

“Outrage” is the right word in your May 9 editorial, but not political. To imply that much of the outrage over U.S. mistreatment (mistreatment apparently running from various “softening” up humiliations to the worst case of torture resulting in death) of prisoners in Iraq represents partisan politics is bad enough, but to essentially condone U.S. mistreatment of prisoners as a presumably unfortunate but “understandable” reaction to the circumstances is a deplorable position for the Lawrence Journal-World to take.

Would you have us unilaterally suspend the Geneva Conventions for the treatment of prisoners of war? How successful Donald Rumsfeld may have been throughout his time in government service is open to question. What is clear in this case is that his misjudgments as a part of the Bush administration and endorsed by President Bush have caused our country and Iraq serious harm. If you don’t think the buck stops on his desk, just where to you think it does?

Gil Zemansky,

Lawrence