Occupiers, not liberators

Re: the Rev. W. Lee Truman's July 16 letter, "Leaving Iraq would be a disaster":

Expressing his personal viewpoint that leaving Iraq would be an opportunity for the fundamentalist/terrorist Muslims to quickly destroy the freely elected government of Iraq, and insisting that the Iraqi population is in a struggle to determine their own government is certainly the Rev. Truman's right to speak out as an American citizen. In fact, in a constitutional democracy, it's a necessity for every American citizen to speak out with one's own personal opinion.

My "personal opinion" — and I won't go into all the reasons we shouldn't have been in Iraq in the first place — is that our presence there is making a bad situation worse. After more than four bloody years of civil war, an average of 20 deaths a day and 40 fatal explosions set off by terrorists every month, I feel that our presence in Iraq is the cause for most of the anti-American feelings and distrust, not only in Iraq, but spreading rapidly around the world — and not just in the Muslim world. We are seen as occupiers of a foreign country, not liberators.

Even "the freely elected government of Iraq" wants us to leave its sovereign country and has publicly stated so.

I would like to suggest to the good reverend that he continue writing letters to The Star, but not express his personal feelings when attending his church.

— Steve Binder, Oxnard

Disillusioned, not demented

Re: Bob Scudder's July 13 letter, "Will he regret his move?":

Scudder hoped that I would not regret my move from the GOP. Far from it because I've grown quite disillusioned toward them. One thing I want to point out though, I left it partially because the recent I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby commutation while ignoring the sentences that two Border Agents are still serving in federal prison. I fail to see how President Bush could feel that Scooter's sentence was too harsh for a crime of which he was convicted. Yet, Bush fails to hear the hue and cry of the citizens asking for the release of the agents who did their job in defending our border.

Scudder also wondered if I was committed to serving the community and the various political parties. I can assure him that I feel I served them well by pulling 30 years in the U.S. Army in the infantry. I served in three wars and in combat in Korea and Vietnam. On retirement from the military, I became a law enforcement officer in San Bernardino County for the next 11 years.

He need not fear that I will swing over to the Democrats: I'm disillusioned, not demented. I fear the slate, at this time, leaves little choice for voters. I'm repulsed by Hillary "Hitlery" Clinton, Barack Obama the neophyte, John Edwards the coiffure model and the rest of the lot. On the GOP side, I see even less.

I think it is time for a strong independent candidate to step forward. It's still early. Let's see who comes out of the woodwork.

— Don Treadwell, Camarillo

Revisiting 1945 Britain

Re: Bob Munson's July 8 letter, "Tired of war, warmongers":

While appreciating the gist of Munson's letter, I cannot agree with his remarks about the 1945 United Kingdom election. As a student at Cambridge University that year, shortly after being invalided out of the Royal Navy, I lived through that election. The reasons Prime Minister Winston Churchill, or rather the groups he represented, lost were:

— The mass of the population believed only the Labor Party would implement the findings of the Beveridge Report, which would create a national health service and other instruments of a welfare state in the fight against want.

— As a prospective Labor member of Parliament, later Lord Robens, remarked: "I remember very well indeed the wishes of men on leave who were saying that they did not want to return to civilian life under the conditions that they had before they went into the service." That election was, in fact, a social revolution, which meant, among other things, the end of forelock touching to the upper classes and the "now my man" attitudes of many who believed their social status to be superior to that of the "working man."

I must also point out that so far from being anti the war, the opening lines of the Labor Party manifesto before that election, "Let us face the future," read, "The British Labor Party is firmly resolved that the Japanese barbarians shall be defeated just as decisively as Nazi aggression and tyranny."

Incidentally, Churchill's military experience really began with the cavalry charge at Omdurman in 1898, when he was an officer in the 21st Lancers. I think we should also remember that, from the end of the World War I, he was in and out of politics, and in 1951 was elected prime minister again.

— Bernard Roberts, Ojai