More On Iraq,

Evidence, And Attitudes

To the Editor:

Ms Villafano, when I read your statement that “evidence ... was not forthcoming,” I assumed that you meant that evidence ... was not forthcoming (definition: showing up, emerging). My thesaurus lists about 200 references under “forthcoming,” many duplications; I chose two that seem to fit the context. It does not mention your definition –– frank and cooperative. But even if it did, it simply does not make sense to say that “evidence ... was not frank and cooperative.” A person can be, or fail to be, frank and cooperative; evidence cannot. I did not say that the US “suddenly realized” in December 1941 where its best interest lay. My point was that the Japanese attack rendered the “best interest” policy untenable. You write, “at that point we could no longer remain solely as interventionists”; did you mean “isolationists”? I am amazed at your ability to intuit what “people like me” believe. I would guess that people like me knew little of what was happening in Germany between 1936 and 1945. But the US government knew a lot more and chose not to get involved until forced to do so. I do not blame the Roosevelt administration, they did what they thought was best. By the way, my attitude towards Mr Gottmeier is not condescension, it is contempt.

Mr Viola does not blame the government, at least the present one, for anything. He prefers to blame the Russians and Chinese for not providing information to UN inspectors. Though there is no evidence that they had information. If they did have information and withheld it, does that relieve the United States of responsibility? Mr Viola, you claim to be an engineer, no engineer would make the statement “they believe everything Saddam says,” which has no basis in fact. The US Constitution is a specification. Do you suggest that it allows only one interpretation? If so why do we have Supreme Court decisions of five to four with sometimes four different opinions of what a single clause means? There is presumably only one interpretation that you agree with, that does not invalidate other interpretations. I did not demand that Gottmeier got the information personally. I questioned his use of the term “first hand,” for good reason based on experience. You guess that I voted for Clinton twice, do you wish to put your money on it? Your claim that “if it’s about oil, we could’ve taken it in 1991” ignores historical contingency.

Of course there were calls to “push on to Baghdad,” Scowcroft has explained why they were ignored. But the events of 9/11, and perhaps generational temperament, have changed things. I read that 60 percent of the US public believe that Iraq was behind the terrorist attacks, despite complete lack of evidence. That, and the understandable fear of further acts of terrorism, creates a climate where a preemptive attack on Iraq is acceptable to a majority of people in the country, and even to many people in other countries. But at least there is something on which we can agree, you say that you “just don’t get it!”; I agree, and I think that you never will.

By the way, someone should tell Powell about the land that has been, and in many cases still is being, used in other countries for US military bases, e.g. Cuba, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Germany, Japan, Britain, Italy, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Philippines.

Brian Gibney

10 Checkerberry Lane, Sandy Hook                               April 7, 2003