To the editor:

President Bush and Vice President Cheney have been quite busy recently defending the war in Iraq, vowing to “stay the course” until “victory” is achieved.

Perhaps more Americans would be willing to be persuaded yet again by these guys if “victory” was defined in some sort of clear manner that describes an achievable objective. Maybe more folks would be willing to “stay the course” if we had some sort of idea what that particular course was.

As things currently stand, I believe a majority of Americans have grown tired of placing implicit trust in this administration. It’s hard to achieve a victory when the goalposts are constantly being moved, and this administration has either redefined or changed the stated goals behind this war on more than one occasion.

The phrase, “trust, but verify,” has come up in our foreign-policy vocabulary in days gone by. Perhaps it’s time we applied those same ideals to our own government.

Darrell Lea,

Lawrence