To the editor:

OK, it’s time once again for George W. to don his action figure flight suit, land on a carrier, and proclaim “Mission accomplished (and I really mean it this time!)” If we still had an excuse for messing around in Mesopotamia, it vanished with the Dec. 13 capture of Saddam Hussein.

As fellow Vietnam veteran David Hann pointed out in his eloquent Jan. 26 letter, the Bush administration is dominated by middle-aged armchair warriors who conveniently avoided their call to duty during the Vietnam War. Among this decidedly unendangered species is Dick Cheney, who was too busy pursuing a graduate degree to be bothered with Vietnam. And of course, at the top is action hero Bush, who, to be fair, did fly Air National Guard patrols over the Rio Grande.

The first 100 or so American servicemen killed in Iraq may have died for legitimate reasons of national security. But what do we tell the widows and orphans of the more than 400 who have died since the collapse of Saddam’s regime, killed in defense of Baghdad gas stations and the Bush-Cheney project of making Iraq safe for democracy and Halliburton?

And what, God forbid, do we tell the survivors of another 9-11 disaster if it occurs because our overextended and undermanned military forces are being used up chasing an unattainable dream on the Tigris River, when they should be chasing down the architect of our next nightmare, hiding, essentially unimpeded, in the Afghan/Pakistani mountains?

Michael Clodfelter,

Lawrence