Thank you for the observations about the partial withdrawal of troops from Iraq (Word from Winkler, Faith in Action, Aug. 23).
I am particularly concerned about the 4,500 special forces that will remain and will probably be "training" and collaborating with the Iraq Special Operations Forces reported on in The Nation, June 22, 2009, "probably the largest special forces outfit ever built by the United States ... [a] project started in the deserts of Jordan just after the Americans took Baghdad in April 2003. There, the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, or Green Berets, trained mostly 18-year-old Iraqis with no prior military experience. The resulting brigade was a Green Beret’s dream come true: a deadly, elite, covert unit, fully fitted with American equipment, that would operate for years under U.S. command and be unaccountable to Iraqi ministries and the normal political process.”
We would do well to require our members of Congress to look into this — deeply.
—Carolyn Scarr, Berkeley, California
I was struck by your first sentence stating that we invaded the wrong country ("Word from Winkler — Withdrawl from Iraq," Faith in Action, Aug. 23). Even though 9/11 was a horrendous act, there were other options than invading a country.
We were not attacked by another country. Invading Iraq was totally non-sensical.
In light of the current effort to scare people about Islam, the offical reason for invading Iraq clearly boggles the mind. But thank you for coming off sabbatical. I do appreciate receiving this email.
—Gary Schrag, Overland Park, Kansas
The thoughtful and erudite words of Jim Winkler, "Withdrawal from Iraq," (Word from Winkler, Faith in Action, Aug. 23 ) notwithstanding, have he and others not failed to take note of why the country is now in a position to implement the recommendations of the 2008 General Conference.
While war is always an undesired action, should we not recognize that it might sometimes represent the overriding moral option that leads to positive outcomes — not that the ends justify the means always. We often, as Winkler's article illustrates, fail to recognize the positive outcomes and now the potential for realization of a compelling "good," freedom, peace and justice for millions of people.
Although the intent of the invasion and the reasons for same can be debated, it seems to me that even a "minimally decent Samaritan" would have been called to intercede when all others had passed by the suffering Iraqis on the road to freedom.
—Robert Baldwin, Birmingham, Alabama
