Need New Strategy
To The Editor:

Threats to the security of the world arise from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Each and [the] others have a segment of their population so radicalized that they willingly blow themselves up in the name of Islam. This group has interpreted the Koran [as] legitimizing their barbarous acts.

Nations in the past have accepted maniacal ideologies releasing the worst attributes of man's nature. Nazi Germany and the war crimes by Imperial Japan still shock us. Germany prior to the Second World War was envied for its sophistication, culture and society. Yet Hitler's rule corrupted Germany's past, converting a nation into abominations.

The Axis Powers were defeated within five years of the U.S. entry into the war. We have been in Iraq longer and have achieved marginal and debatable results. Our policies have driven recruits to terrorist groups who hope to make the attacks of 9/11 seem insignificant. Internally we are weaker than we were at the conclusion of WW II. After years of war the U.S. had the means to enact the Marshall Plan.

Iraq has proven that force of arms guarantees the U.S. little in reducing or removing threats to our national security. Our military might should only be relied upon as a scalpel to be used sparingly in order to eradicate defined targets. Broad use of our forces captures territory that we do not have the manpower or the resources to hold and secure. We also lack the treasury for prolonged occupations.

Realizing past polices are failures mandates evolving new ones that may offer alternatives to avoid future entrapments. The two Democratic presidential hopefuls do not address this issue by promising to withdraw from Iraq. [Republican candidate U.S. Senator John] McCain has declared his intentions of remaining on Bush's course for up to 100 years. Confronting growing threats in the face of failed policies requires the candidates to offer voters their plans to protect [the] nation. Edward Horn Baldwin, New York