When we have been attacked

and know the attackers, or have good intelligence that we will be attacked,

we may certainly operate the way the president has been operating and

with good conscience. When we are in the right, world opinion follows

us, and by extension, U.N. approval.

This is a case where Bush began

the dialogue with, "We will disarm Saddam Hussein." He did so

without a smoking gun, without any sinister intelligence showing some

disturbance on the Middle Eastern fault line. He uses words like "imagine"

to justify war. He strong-arms some allies and buys others, but he convinces

very few. His justifications are moving targets: Saddam will attack us;

we must end his brutal dictatorship; this will bring democracy to the

Middle East; he defies U.N. directives. So what is it, or is this the

shell game where if you try often enough, you eventually win?

Now as for showing loyalty

to the President and his bad ideas: "It is curious how the English-speaking

peoples have always had a fear of one-man power, handing themselves over,

lock, stock, and barrel, body and soul, to one man, and worshipping him

as if he were an idol." Winston Churchill.

George Bush has done little

more than a moderately capable janitor might have done in his stead. The

military he uses was appropriated and trained under other presidents,

the military plans are drawn up by men and women commissioned before he

took office, the political blunders are all his. What would I do differently,

Mr. Spensley? I would have recounted the votes in Florida.

Timothy J. Parker

Peachtree City