THE PUBLIC MIND: U.S. HAS OBLIGATION TO HELP REBELS BATTLING SADDAM HUSSEIN

To the Readership:

"The Bush Administration's policy is not being defended because it is morally indefensible." That is how William Safire of the New York Times explained why host Ted Koppel could not obtain an administration spokesperson to defend their current de facto policy of permitting the wholesale massacres of Kurdish and Shiite people of Iraq by the Iraqi government. Their primary instrument of murder is the helicopter gunship. This follows Iraqi agreement not to fly helicopters during the temporary cease fire signed with Gen. Schwarzkopf except to ferry supplies across rivers where bridges were knocked out.

President Bush insisted that the war was justified on the human rights ground of countering naked aggression against the people of Kuwait. He publicly called for overthrow of Saddam Hussein and literally invited Iraqi people to rise against him by promising that helicopter or jet aircraft would not be permitted to fly. Now the copters fly, blast cities, and we sit. We don't even deign to supply mountain Kurdish guerrillas with the same Stinger hand-held missiles that proved their worth in shooting down Soviet gunships over Afghanistan's soil.

This war is not over. It is not close to being over. We are forfeiting the very moral grounds we earned in Kuwait. At the very least the U.S. must commit to the following policies: 1) Shoot down any Iraqi gunships that attempt flight over Iraqi airspace. Jets and helicopters look the same to civilians underneath them. 2) Immediately seed a U.N. resolution to replace our occupation relief agents with Red Cross and other specialists who are trained to do that work. 3) Keep a sufficient Allied and American military force in that occupation force indefinitely to protect the refugee population. 4) Supply those who've now fled the cities with Stingers and antitank weapons wherever possible. At least they'll have some chance of survival, like the Afghans had.

We opted for war. These are its direct consequences. The nation is morally bound to honor these public commitments. We need not worry about offending international sensibilities over national sovereignty, for Saddam Hussein is an international genocidal war criminal. If we save lives and get criticized, I think the President could happily live with that.

Russell D. Renka

Cape Girardeau