
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 21, 1991                   TAG: 9103210451
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

WORLD WAR II SET NO PRECEDENT FOR TODAY'S IRAQ

MR. SAM NAUMAN'S plan (Commentary Page, March 1) to pattern any postwar prescription for Iraq after postwar Germany or Japan is flawed. In World War II, the military objective was to inflict the greatest possible amount of damage to the country in order to demoralize the civilian population.

Seventy-five percent of Germany was reduced to ash and rubble, and the number of dead, mostly women and children, was staggering. German war criminals were tried, hanged or incarcerated after the war. Three generations of Germans were and are paying restitution to Israel.

Germany was under occupation by all Allied powers; America orchestrated the formation of a new government. I experienced these facts; I did not learn them from CNN. In respect to Japan, I would like to point out that the atomic bomb did not distinguish between military and civilian targets.

No, Iraq was not treated in this war as were Germany and Japan in World War II, and should not be treated like them now. Kuwait has the same right to punitive damages as Israel has. As for Western-style democracy, it is not up to us to impose it or to oust Saddam Hussein. It is for the governments of the Middle East to politically restructure the area.

Any reconstruction in Germany or Japan was not a magnanimous act but a political expedient. We do not need a bulwark against communism now. In asking the United States to rebuild and rehabilitate Iraq, Mr. Nauman is asking us to build another teahouse of the August moon. HILDA MARIE COLE ROANOKE

by CNB