Dear Editor,

Recently in the al-Hurriyya suburb of Baghdad, Saddam’s security forces arrested a civil servant for preparing to flee the country. With war only days away, the government had issued strict orders for all civilians to stay put, the purpose being to drive up the number of innocent casualties after hostilities begin. To make an example of this poor soul, Hussein’s butchers tied him to a street pole and ordered passersby to watch as they cut out his tongue – then left him to bleed to death. Actually, he got off lightly. He could have been forced to watch his wife or children get raped and killed; he could have been dropped into giant shredders and ripped limb from limb, another favorite of Saddam’s. Or how about viewing menstruating women suspended by their legs in a barbaric effort to humiliate them?

This is the regime we’re removing, the one from which America’s courageous men and women in uniform are freeing the Iraqi people.

It’s also the regime that America’s “anti-war” protesters regularly take to the streets to protect, nominally in the interest of the Iraqi civilians who stand to die in an invasion.

For some reason, the protesting set doesn’t much worry about the Iraqi civilians who die every day under Hussein’s cruel reign. To them, dying for fascism is somehow less tragic than dying for freedom.

Soon hopefully, the Iraqi people will enjoy the same freedom that America’s “anti-war” protesters enjoy.

God bless America and our troops.

Bob Anderson

Glenwood Springs