To the editor:

President Bush and General Petraeus have decided that we need to stay in Iraq, and the surge is showing progress. And they say that we are sacrificing lives and spending billions so that we can sustain a democracy like our very own in Iraq. Maybe I’m confused, but how can we say we have helped the Iraqi people establish this American form of democracy when the latest polls state that 80 percent say we should get out of their country as soon as possible and 60 percent say it is morally acceptable to kill Americans? If it is their democracy, why are we not listening to the people?

Then again, maybe it is like our new form of democracy. Our president doesn’t listen to the people, and we the people have allowed it to happen. In the Middle East, they would call that person a dictator. In America, we call that person “The Decider.”

E. Kent Hayes,

Lawrence