The transparency of ‘war on terror’

Re “The terrorist we tolerate,” Opinion, May 11

Suspected Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, living freely in the United States, is living proof that the Bush administration never had any intention of waging a broad “war on terror.” The administration never had any intention of going to war with North Korea or Iran or prosecuting terrorists anywhere else in the world. The whole thing was just a ploy to get Saddam Hussein, which is what President Bush’s advisors wanted to do all along.

BILL BENNETT

Newport Beach

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When I first read about the case and subsequent release of Posada, I was infuriated. As a Muslim American, I have kept track of and even become directly involved in cases in which innocent Muslims in the U.S. -- who had no terrorist ties whatsoever -- were threatened with deportation, faced torture or had their lives ruined by the Bush administration’s so-called war on terror. If our current administration is sincerely concerned about terrorism, then why did a suspected Cuban terrorist go free? Such a double standard only proves that this is not a war against terror but a war against Muslims -- mostly innocent ones.

The U.S. government needs to understand that there should only be one standard of law that applies to everyone equally, whether Muslim, Israeli or Cuban.

SHEREEN SABET

Huntington Beach

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Rosa Brooks’ article aptly explains the hypocrisies of the so-called war on terror and why many people around the world are tired of this cynical charade. If the U.S. government can’t find Posada while he hides in plain sight on a hotel balcony, sipping cocktails, it’s no wonder a man in a cave near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is invisible.

KAREN GAI DEAN

Newcastle, Australia