[Peace-discuss] Letters to the NY Times

[David Green]

To the Editor:

Niall Ferguson asserts that "civil war and chaos tend
to break out when American military interventions have
been aborted," but in the countries he cites -
Vietnam, Cambodia, Lebanon and Haiti - it was the
American intervention that either provoked or
contributed to the ensuing violence. 

Wars inevitably have unforeseen consequences, and the
longer they go on the more irreparable the damage will
be. The invasion of Iraq by United States forces
resulted in the overthrow of a tyrannical regime but
destroyed the fabric of a functioning society and
opened deep fissures between Iraq's ethnic and
religious groups. 

There is no good solution to the tragedy taking place
in Iraq, but since the presence of our troops is
helping to fuel the insurgency rather than end it, the
least bad solution would be to call them home and
allow the Iraqis to put their country back together. 

Rachelle Marshall
Stanford, Calif., May 24, 2005

• 

To the Editor:

While Niall Ferguson deplores "a hasty American
withdrawal," his own evidence actually suggests that
the United States has no option but withdrawal. 

He notes three ways that the United States can still
win: send hundreds of thousands more American troops,
get that many troops from allies or be more ruthless.
But the United States cannot even recruit enough
troops in the status quo, and its allies are fleeing
Iraq. Enormous human rights abuses such as leveling
insurgent cities would have a catastrophic effect on
the war on terror.

The insurgency is looking more and more like a civil
war. After the liberation of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein's
capture, the handover of sovereignty and the January
elections, Iraq was supposed to get better. It did
not. How long will our men and women have to die
before our leaders see it is time to come home?

Jeremy Pressman
Storrs, Conn., May 24, 2005
The writer is an assistant professor of political
science, University of Connecticut.

• 

To the Editor:

Niall Ferguson's advice that the United States should
learn from how the British handled the Iraq insurgency
of 1920 implies that British policy in Iraq was
eventually successful. In fact, there continued to be
coups, countercoups and uprisings in Iraq, another
British occupation during World War II, and a
revolution that overthrew the British-installed
monarchy. All of which eventually led to the Baath
Party takeover for the latter part of the 20th
century. 

This more complete historical perspective is not
promising for the current intervention, whether one
argues for withdrawal or staying the course. 

Barbara Parmenter
Brighton, Mass., May 24, 2005

• 

To the Editor:

Niall Ferguson makes a good case for long odds against
United States success in creating a stable democracy
in Iraq. But Mr. Ferguson makes a couple of gratuitous
comments. 

First, he confuses the cost and value of life in
comparing the cost of training and equipping an
American soldier with that of an Iraqi insurgent. He
may think that "the American side takes its losses so
much harder," but he must be impervious to the daily
scenes of public grieving of Iraqis who have lost
loved ones in yet another car bombing.

Second, he frets that "too few American liberals seem
to grasp how high the price will be" if the Bush
administration's policy in Iraq fails. Actually, we
do. That is why we thought the policy wrongheaded in
the first place. It is the Bush administration,
cynically or otherwise, that chooses not to
understand.

Harry Vonk
Carlsbad, Calif., May 24, 2005

• 

To the Editor:

The main problem with Niall Ferguson's argument is
that Iraq should not be our first priority, cannot be
a top American priority well into the future - indeed,
should never have been a priority at all. Reducing the
two gravest threats to the planet - nuclear
proliferation and global warming - were and are the
correct policy and moral imperatives of the world's
only superpower.

Tom Parrett
New York, May 24, 2005

• 

To the Editor:

Niall Ferguson clearly sees that the obstacle to
"winning" in Iraq is our reluctance to do what the
British did in 1920: deliberately escalate attacks on
civilians. And because, unfortunately to him it seems,
the "humiliation and torture of prisoners have not
yielded any significant benefits," he is left with
only one last proposal. We must maintain an occupation
by bribing underprivileged immigrants to be
mercenaries. 

That Americans will not accept these solutions is not
a military setback but an advancement of our morality.


Mr. Ferguson's suggested course of action would only
prove what history has shown, and what the British and
the Iraqis can attest to; it would prove all that I've
known since my brother, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, was
killed in Iraq last year: these conflicts are not
marked by winners and losers, but by irreversible
tragic acts against humanity that are embedded in the
souls of the affected. 

Dante Zappala
Philadelphia, May 25, 2005



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