To the editor:

This statement exemplifies the credibility gap of conservative America, by Bill Frist about Terry Schiavo: “When you’re taking innocent life, with parents who want that life preserved, you’ve got to make sure, and therefore stepping in to say, let’s take one more review, that’s what we did.”

Imagine if someone suggested they apply that standard to Iraq. Imagine if we could believe politicians who simultaneously champion saving the life of one women, 15 years in a vegetative state, while supporting bombing a nation that never threatened us.

The 30,000 Iraqis who’ve perished as a result of American compassion to “protect life” never had a chance to judge the validity of Frist’s claim about protecting innocents, but rest assured, the millions of surviving Iraqis, and hundreds of millions of other Muslims, know perfectly well that our nation cares nothing about their lives. They have been the target of U.S. policy, both in the past and the present, from Democratic and Republican conservatives, whose contempt for the poorest people on the planet has been too obvious. This is why Americans often feel unwelcome in the so-called “Third World.”

For those who refuse to learn about the specifics of our interventions in the past, this statement sounds nuts. They wish to continue a life of illusions, where America is always right, and anyone who questions us is misinformed. But who is misinformed? The people under attack, or the people attacking without a shred of legitimacy?

Chris White,

Lawrence