Letter to the Editor

Hard to support nation doing something wrong

To the editor:

In response to Jack Stapleton's recent column "Everybody loves a winner -- maybe not": Stapleton seems to be saying that the administration's policy may be wrong, but it is rather hard to oppose it. He gives all the reasons why the alleged transfer of democracy to Iraq is like a ghostly figment of the imagination.

Stapleton is the only columnist I have read who says something I also say: that Saddam Hussein must be useful as a kind of example. He shows us what we could be if we took just a slightly different turn.

Stapleton also seems to be saying that you kind of have to go along with this. Everybody went along with Saddam, didn't they? But America has coercion without the killing. The idea that you can't oppose it makes sense, because you have to be a good citizen, and it's hard to find the alternative without being hateful yourself.

I try to envision a way to actively oppose these anti-democratic invasive policies of unilateral interventionism. This is a nation which makes a special class out of the rich, ignores the poor and then tries to buy elections, and we have to love these people and be part of the nation. But how can you be part of the nation when the nation is doing something wrong? We are like a third-world dictatorship. Somebody has to come along and lead us without hatred and divisiveness.

JACK SILVERMAN

River Forest, Ill.