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

DATE: THURSDAY, April 18, 1991                   TAG: 9104180600
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HAUNTED BY PEOPLE'S ACCEPTANCE OF WAR

THE U.S. decision to use force instead of patience in the gulf has left a path of human suffering and death. In the present atmosphere of celebration, I am haunted by the American people's acceptance of the war and the way it was fought.

Our military boasted 3,000 targets per day in the Texas-sized country of Iraq. It doesn't take much imagination to realize that the "unintended" mistakes decimated concentrated civilian neighborhoods.

Why did America stand by and watch our generals pound middle-class Iraq back several centuries while casualties mounted into the hundreds of thousands? The United States condemned biological warfare; yet it destroyed water and sewage systems, an act tantamount to germ warfare as it reduced people to drinking disease-laden water from puddles.

Ironically, American soldiers are shocked at Saddam's savagery toward his citizens when, only a month prior, the U.S. military incessantly pounded and terrorized these same civilian victims - over half children under 15. Killing seemed antiseptic, even commendable when accomplished from the air.

Public debate about the war's morality was replaced by proclamations from our own unique president/ex-CIA chief/oil man that this was a "just" war. His authority was accepted above that of Mideast experts and religious leaders who either warned against or condemned the war. Did Americans accept this cruel war for the dubious satisfaction of declaring that Vietnam wasn't wrong, that the real problem with that war was that we just didn't kill enough, fast enough?

Thanks to our updated New World Order military strategy, the Iraqi people are getting a double dose of holocaust. For me, this war represents the ultimate setback for humane values, justice and world peace. CYNTHIA MUNLEY SALEM

by CNB