The ‘Happy Error’ That Led to War

Re “The Happy Error,” Opinion, Feb. 8: David Gelernter writes, “Thank God for those phantom Iraqi weapons of mass destruction ... an amazing piece of luck. Strategically, they are a guide to the future

Wow, what luck! This phantom is not from President Bush but from God. Call off the intelligence investigation at once! Here is how God’s guide to the future works: Since Syria and Iran, providentially, also have phantom weapons of mass destruction, which we mistakenly believe to be real, we will attack those evil countries too.

Sadly, North Korea gets off the hook, for its weapons of mass destruction are real.

Leon Roth

Corona del Mar

*

Bush scares me ... Gelernter terrifies me.

Barbara Kennedy

Lake Arrowhead

*

Gelernter would have us “pray for the strange, accidental wisdom to make another providential mistake.” What a perversion of prayer and providence.

With all the madmen in the world, some actually controlling weapons of mass destruction or nuclear weapons, wasn’t it provident that we made our mistake where the oil was? It may not seem pertinent to anyone on the Yale faculty, but I think we should pray that our children are not next to be sent to secure Halliburton raw materials.

This was not a mistake; we were told we were in imminent danger, and anyone who questioned that had his patriotism questioned. All the think tanks at Yale can’t pray that away.

Glenn C. Davis

Laguna Woods

*

“It was all a mistake, but it worked beautifully,” writes Gelernter. This statement belongs next to the definition of moral turpitude in the current political lexicon. Gelernter’s words are callous partisan rationalizing. He would not have the courage to speak them to the families of dead or wounded coalition or Iraqi soldiers or to the relatives of Iraqi civilians killed or mangled in the invasion.

May God keep this country from further exercise of “the Bush method” as Gelernter defines it.

Tony Litwinko

Glendale