“Virtue is reason completely developed.” As Mr. Hoffman finds the quoting of ancient personages so clever, he ought to find Cicero downright brain-bending. Unfortunately for him, dogma is the antithesis of reason, and Mr. Hoffman, from his writings, seems little but dogmatic.

Now dogmatists live in what appears to be a simple world. They believe, therefore it must be. However, events in the real world often violate dogmatic beliefs, and the tricky dogmatist finds a way to bend the appearance to form the reality.

Mr. Hoffman’s success at blending his apparent religious zealotry with politics has allowed the formation of a potent melange of self-delusion and viscera.

The facts are: Bush made the decision to invade Iraq after the United States was attacked by members of a terrorist group known as al Qaeda. None of the attackers was Iraqi, nor was any substantive link ever found between the government of Iraq and the al Qaeda organization. Such links were often claimed by Vice President Cheney and President Bush, but to date, no evidence has ever been produced.

The reason given by Bush for an invasion was a “grave and growing threat”. Now and then he threw in the obvious violation of UN Security Council resolutions, but was never able to get UN backing for an invasion.

He cited “weapons of mass destruction,” and told us ominously of a mushroom cloud over New York. He never explained why a sovereign, secular, Stalinist-style government might wish to risk destruction by aiding religious crazies, nor the way in which these weapons could pose us harm, nor even evidence that such weapons still existed.

In the execution of the invasion, Bush and his cronies overrode the advice of the senior military and invaded with a much smaller force than proved necessary.

We were told democracy would spread like wildfire, though there is no historic precedent for such an assertion. We were told other bad governments were just lining up to behave themselves because of this new aggressive policy. Check Iran and North Korea.

We were told the occupation would pay for itself. The bill is well above $300 billion. The cost to replace military equipment may approach half a trillion. We were told it was the end of hostilities. We were told and told and told. Bush still believes. He is a dogmatist.

As for Mr. Hoffman: I never mentioned “liberal” as equivalent to any other pejorative. I find the word fuzzy and useless except for fools who can’t otherwise think. I never mentioned oil as a casus beli. Oil and Iraq’s geographic position make Iraq worthy of our attention, but I don’t believe Bush invaded just for oil.

I think Bush wishes to appear decisive and strong, and was advised by a close-knit group that this was not only the right thing to do, but in an uncertain world, one of the few sure things to do.

As I’ve said in this paper many times, Bush is intellectually lazy, and certainly lacks curiosity about the world around him. Mr. Hoffman’s equating Bush’s deliberate, poorly researched, pre-determined, foolhardy waste of American lives, treasure, and power with FDR’s negotiating for postwar Soviet occupied Eastern Europe is just plain silly.

His distortion of history eerily resembles his hallucinogenic view of current events. As for elections, we have one forthcoming. I doubt Mr. Hoffman will be crowing then.

We’re all a product of our collective experiences and our ingrained nature. Mr. Hoffman assumes an intimacy he neither deserves nor possesses in reflecting on my state of mind. As a young man, I learned a particular trade from tough guys who filled briefing rooms with smoke and profanity, professionalism and ego; men who had seen and caused and nearly experienced death. I require neither his obeisance nor his approbation.

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” — Ancient Greek dead guy.

Timothy J. Parker
Peachtree City, Ga.