Editor's view was overly simplistic

To the editor:

Perhaps it's the heat that's making Joe Sullivan cranky and tired. Perhaps he's too tired to fully intellectually engage with the complexities of the world. Perhaps, as he sits, shoulders slumped, in his office chair his world view is becoming reductionist, ahistorical and simplistic. Perhaps he once knew that the reason folks think of themselves as "Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds first, not Iraqis," is because they had no hand in the creation of their country. Perhaps, in his weariness, he has forgotten that these different ethnic and religious groups were arbitrarily united under one mandate following World War I. Perhaps he has likewise forgotten that the only thing that has held them together since Iraqi independence has been a series of occupations and dictatorships. These are all important things to consider before, say, invading a country. Perhaps he's too tired to take any of the blame for his paper's rallying support for the Iraq war. Perhaps it requires considerably less energy to blame the fracas on the very people he so paternalistically wished to liberate.

KYLE BURK, Jackson