Hypocrisy in desertion policy

To the editor:For some time it has been obvious that most Americans were fed up with the Iraq civil war begun and orchestrated by the U.S. president and vice president and their Republican lackeys.

The last straw, however, has to be the administration policy of dumping more of our brave men and women into the deadly Iraq quagmire while at the same time not diligently pursuing those who desert.

As reported by the Associated Press:

"Despite the rise in desertions from the Army as the Iraq war drags on into a fifth year, the U.S. military does almost nothing to find those who flee and rarely prosecutes those it gets its hands on."

Though there is much to criticize in the policies of this Republican administration, none of that compares with the insidious and egregious hypocrisy inherent in this report.

Though this writer has been opposed to the war from the moment the president, through deception and fraudulence, started it, as a former Marine he certainly does not condone desertion.

But the American citizen can take comfort in knowing that this type of stupid policy will end in January 2009, unless our president and vice president are sooner impeached.

BILL D. BURLISON, Advance, Mo.