Iraq - Public reaction

On January 22, I wrote about how the Detroit Free Press had run headlines proclaiming that the U.S. was in danger of losing the war based on some statistics compiled by Knight-Ridder newspaper employees. The gist was that the "analysis" show a large percentage increase in casualties in the prior three months and that portended losing the war. What the so-called analysis failed to note was that the increases were concommitant with increased military action against the insurgents/terrorists and that the absolute base was very small to begin with so any increase could be made to look large statistically.

The Detroit Free Press published my remarks along with many others who had drawn the same conclusion. Today, they published additional letters "refuting" our position, to wit:

There are some who question bringing facts about the war out in the open, saying it hurts our soldiers and our country. I strongly disagree. The best thing we can do is to be honest about the situation. This approach will bring us to hard choices about Iraq that must be made based on reality.

Barbara Masters Farmington

What reality Ms. Masters? Perhaps you mean the reality that you don't support the actions there so any misrepresentation of the situation is acceptable?

It is ironic that so many readers were offended by a headline that suggested that we are losing the war in Iraq. In reality, we have already lost much more than a war. We have lost our way.

Bill Hickey Detroit

The Way of what Mr. Hickey? The Way of the U.N. that can't get out of its own way to address evil anywhere? The Way of ignoring the most pressing danger to the world since the Soviet Union?

Today's letters did not address the fact that the analysis was spurious... only that they believed we had no "moral" standing in being in Iraq.

I will begin to go through the 2020 analysis and one common theme appears throughout: the continued danger to the whole world represented by fundamentalist Islamists... as well as the difficult choices we will have to make... doesn't necessarily allow us going into the Way of Isolation.

I stand behind what I wrote on November 3... and there is nothing I have seen or read that convinces me differently.