Letter: Original reasons for war long forgotten

Thursday, Oct. 13, 2005 | 8:17 a.m.

Recent speeches by President Bush, further reiterations of "staying the course," ensure that -- if he has his way -- our troops will be in Iraq for many years to come and that many more will perish in the conflicts that lie ahead.

The newly revised rationale for this policy is the claim that Iraq represents the focal point for Muslim terrorists, whose goal is to subvert Western democracies. Anti-war protesters such as Cindy Sheehan are viewed as unpatriotic, and, like Vietnam protesters three decades before her, as aiding the enemy.

Lost in this argument of political smoke and mirrors is the fact that the original purpose of our invasion of Iraq, a sovereign nation whose disparate, angry factions were reined in by iron-fisted Saddam Hussein, has been revised and forgotten.

Also forgotten is the 1961 speech by outgoing President Dwight Eisenhower, who warned against the perils of the military-industrial complex. And let's not lose sight of the fact that our economy, with the exception of corporations profiting from the war effort, is in a sinkhole of unprecedented proportion, and that nearly 2,000 of our troops are dead.

In the final analysis, the war in Iraq is virtually a civil war that will not likely be settled by a U.S.-sponsored "constitution." It is unconscionable that the killing of our troops in the middle of this civil war and the ongoing misery of the Iraqi people should continue for so remote a goal as fostering "democracy" in the Middle East.

John Esperian Las Vegas