Is it unpatriotic to oppose the war?

Is it unpatriotic to oppose the war?

A while back, I was having a rather heated discussion, via e-mail, with an acquaintance who is a devout right-wing conservative. He is a Vietnam War-era veteran and I am a Korean War-era veteran and an independent voter.

The discussion was about the Iraq war. I told him it was a war built on lies, that there was no Al Qaida (or WMDs) in Iraq before we invaded and that we shouldn't be there now. His comment was very interesting and so reminiscent of the inaccurate mantra coming from the administration.

He wrote, "I'm surprised that you, as a veteran, are so unpatriotic that you don't want to strike back at those who attack us."

Quite frankly, I was shocked at that statement because, until that moment, I didn't realize he had become a Stepford conservative (a person who has forfeited his ability and right to think politically for himself and just repeats what he is told to think).

My response to him was, "I don't appreciate your accusation. Retaliating against Iraq for the twin towers destruction is analogous to our attacking Mongolia in retaliation for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It just doesn't make any sense."

Unpatriotic? Absolutely not. There are a lot of us veterans (from all political views) who believe that had we concentrated on the people who attacked us, we'd have focused all of our efforts in Afghanistan. That's where they were.

And had we done that, we would probably have achieved our goal of destroying Al Qaida and we would never have had the thousands of youngsters in Iraq who suffered from wounds, maiming and death in a place we shouldn't be for a reason that never was.

Len Brauer

Palatine