Letter: Rage should be redirected

Sunday, Nov. 5, 2006 | 8:05 a.m.

Ever since the Iraq war began, this illegal war created out of whole cloth by the Republican administration, I have been waiting for the rage to begin as the death and casualty numbers mount.

The rage is here, only it is directed at a Vietnam veteran who misspeaks about war and education. The rage is against the messenger, not against the lawless perpetrations of the war. As if the messengers, those who speak out against the war, are responsible for the deaths and casualties.

I wonder how many of those who rage against the messengers have ever been in harm's way? Certainly the members of the administration have not! Bush/Cheney were hiding out when I, a 37-year-old father of four, went to Vietnam. Vietnam, the history lesson Rumsfeld forgot, in which more than 58,000 kids died for nothing, for the whim of politicians who would have their war.

Bush and Co. took the troops away from the real war in Afghanistan, where bin Laden and al-Qaida, the real terrorists, were virtually on the ropes, for their own private war in Iraq. This revived an al-Qaida that was all but dead by providing incentive and a training ground for future terrorists.

Rage against those who would kill your children for a political agenda. Lash out, as Kerry did in his first response, against an administration that would spend your children in their private wars.

James J. Begley, Las Vegas