Dear Editor,

The idea that a war against Iraq is going to solve this country’s fear and anxiety is totally false. As a citizen of this great land, I feel extremely uncomfortable going to war without being attacked. Sure, we had the World Trade Center wiped out and we attacked and took over Afghanistan. Justified? Probably in more ways than we realize.

Now we are going to make a pre-emptive attack on Iraq to be sure they don’t provide chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons to terrorists. Then whom do we attack? Iran? Pakistan? India? China? Russia? They all have nuclear weapons. They all could possess chemical and biological weapons. Where does it stop?

Our presidents seem to be honorable men, but the people of Germany rallied behind Adolph Hitler as their champion. Being free requires bravery and the ability to realize we have to trust in our institutions rather than individual men. George Washington could have been a king, but used restraint to set up our democratic way of government. The founders of our nation never trusted men with too much power.

If each person received a $5,000 bill to be paid at once so we could go to war and pay for it, would we go to war? If the names of each fighting man who would die were listed in advance, would we be able to go to war? I think the answers might be yes if the purpose for war was strong enough. The problem is there is no assurance that we will be attacked if we don’t go to war.

The idea that a terrorist organization could hit us with another World Trade Center action is frightening. But think about it. As terrible as it was, did it even approach our use of atomic weapons on Japan delivered by a trained fighting force?

Why hasn’t another attack been made by terrorists against us? We keep expecting it, but maybe the terrorists are being intelligent, realizing that another attack would bring a response similar to the Afghanistan war. Maybe our violent response terrorized the terrorists. Maybe the Muslim leaders in the Middle East do not want to lose their countries and their positions of leadership in them by allowing another terrorist attack, and thus another response like Afghanistan against one of their countries.

We are walking a thin line and we must be sure that the rest of the world trusts us. Starting wars does not instill a feeling of trust. Starting wars is dangerous to our own freedom from within. To play this game requires leadership that can see far into the future with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

J. Steven Randol

Battlement Mesa