_______________AIRSTRIKES OF MERCY BY GERALDINE BROOKS (12/21/98)

I simply do not see where the U.S. is justified in bombing a poor country like Iraq. I, too, have visited Iraq as a freelance journalist, and I can testify that Iraq's so-called military force is pathetic. Men march barefooted with old World War II rifles. Bombing poor husbands and sons does not change anything. It appears that the U.S. Military chose to use Iraq as their experimental target, to try out their new "weapons of mass destruction." -- Paul Nelson God Bless you for running this story! The doves at the United Nations and elsewhere would never have had the spine to stand up to Hitler. (Just look how many of them stood idly by while Adolf rampaged through Europe in the '30s and '40s.) -- Teresa Huberty Minneapolis Ironically placed under "Mother's Who Think," Geraldine Brooks' article condoning the recent airstrikes on Iraq was thoroughly lacking in critical thought. While most of us appreciate the need to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein for the reasons Brooks mentions, morality alone is not enough. Not unexpectedly, the recent bombing campaign has accomplished exactly what our policies toward Iraq have accomplished over the last eight years: a minor inconvenience for Saddam and increased agony for the citizens of Iraq. Why, then, is this moral? Without clear goals, these bombings have all the intellectual strategic value of throwing a shoe at your kid for mouthing off. Wanting the kid to behave respectfully is moral. Throwing a shoe at the kid is not, and will, in most likelihood, only make the problem worse. -- Les Milton Surely Geraldine Brooks can envision the damage caused by a warhead exploding in a residential neighborhood -- damage far more ghastly and arbitrary than anything administered by Saddam's thugs. How can she be complicit in such atrocities? The latest attacks were a brutal, cynical PR display and nothing more. Via CNN, we're invited to marvel at Tomahawk technology, the puke green explosions and Cristianne Amanpour's hair. And if I were a sailor who'd launched a Tomahawk, I'd probably feel pretty good when I saw the rubble of the Republican Guard's barracks and a cratered military runway. But in my heart, I'd know that the runway would be repaired in days, that the Guard was not "at home" and that these actions didn't materially diminish Saddam's creation of weaponry or his hold on the Iraqi people. And deeper in my heart, I'd fear that my missile was one of the errant warheads that exploded God knows where, somewhere along a line from the coast through the suburbs of Baghdad. -- Drew Hamre N E X T+P A G E+| "Scandal Sugar Daddy of the Year"; plus: Chief Justice Rehnquist and why cruise ships suck