Ravindra works for the Indian government, has served many positions there, including being a judge for a period of time. We have been in contact with each other for a couple years. He contacted us inquiring about geneology since we share the same last name. We have found that although we don't share any bloodlines we do share many views.

Connie Prasher
Chaska
It appears to be fashionable these days to speak against the U.S. and their war. Without holding a brief for that country, I wish to strike a discordant note in this chorus. When the weight swings to either side, the first casualty is fairness and objectivity.

How easily we have put on the backburner the atrocities which the Iraq regime has inflicted on its own people. Forgotten are the dead bodies of gassed Kurdish women and children strewn on the village streets. Forgotten are the torture and public execution of the dissidents. Forgotten are the young women picked up on the streets for the pleasure of Saddam's son. It is easy to condone an evil when it is being attacked by another.

I remember the outrage all over the world when Saddam Hussein had held families of Europeans as hostage at the time of last Gulf War. The TV footage of that dictator swaggering in front of a small child who was clearly intimidated should be still fresh in our minds, but the world seems to have forgotten that child and his fear.

Nobody seems to now remember that this regime had invaded Kuwait for no reason whatsoever, that it had committed untold atrocities on the Kuwaitis during the occupation and that it had executed the prisoners and destroyed Kuwait City when it was forced to vacate it.

We have forgotten the scenes of the burning oil wells, set alight by the hundreds by the retreating Iraqis. It had taken a long time to bring those fires under control; the damage to environment was spread beyond the confines of the Arab world and may have been irreparable in some ways. Yet, some can still say that it is up to the Iraqi people if and when they want to throw off this regime.

Can we overlook the fact that Iraq is the only country which has made large-scale use of chemical weapons in the last quarter-century? In the war with Iran and in suppressing the Kurds, this regime felt no compunction in using weapons designed for mass destruction of civilian life.

There is no doubt that when it comes to a crunch, it will do so on the rest of Iraqis who have the courage to say that they have had enough of it. The repeated firing by this regime's army and irregulars on the fleeing Basra civilians is proof, if any was needed, of this assertion.

The surrendering Iraqi soldiers have so repeatedly and consistently talked of death squads that it certainly has a ring of truth. It appears that this regime does not consider anybody as its own. That is the hallmark of a megalomaniac.

I am reminded of the last megalomaniac the world had dealt with. Hitler had tortured his people, had his death squads, and had invaded neighboring countries without any justification. He was a rabble-rouser par excellence. The Germans at the time appeared to be all for him. The allied air and ground assaults resulted in death of a very large number of German civilians, innocent by the current definition.

Yet, the world lauded the allied action. Let us not forget Hitler's decision to flood the subways to prevent the advance of allied forces, subways where hundreds of thousands of German "innocent" civilians had taken shelter.

Yes, innocent Iraqis are dying in action by both sides in this war. They were dying before the war. While Iraq was never lacking in the propaganda to show how children were dying because sanctions prevented them from getting medicines, we forgot to ask how the construction of those palaces and the zillion statues and portraits of the dictator across the country was being financed. This regime has been ostentatious and extravagant all these years while claiming that there was no money for essentials and blaming it on the sanctions.

The discovery of vast numbers of chemical protection suits and gas masks in every urban area captured by the Coalition forces should have set the protestors thinking, if they were not so obsessed with their one-sided views. What was the purpose of stockpiling this equipment in so many locations?

Nobody can claim that the regime had a fear that the invaders would use chemical weapons. Clearly, the chemical weapon stocks exist; these are under a central control and are meant to be distributed to field units only when a top-level decision is taken to use it. That time may yet come.

The safety equipment is for the loyal troops. Those who base their opposition to this war on the "fact" that no weapons of mass destruction have been found may still have a surprise waiting for them just before the dictator decides to quit Iraq or this world, as Hitler did in that bunker.

Even the media has not escaped the anti-war tilt. A report on the redoubtable BBC said, "American troops shot dead seven Iraqi women and children..". The event was something like this. After the suicide-attack a couple of days ago by an Iraqi agent in a vehicle, the American troops were screening civilian vehicles more thoroughly. They signalled this vehicle to stop, they fired warning shots but the vehicle kept on coming forward. Then they fired at the vehicle. A balanced reporting would have said, "Seven Iraqi women and children died when American troops fired at a vehicle which failed to stop for checking...". These women and children were not fired at; the target was the vehicle. They were not killed by American troops; they died when the vehicle was fired at.

The media has repeatedly reported the civilian casualties in Baghdad due to failure of weapon guidance systems. Though the U.S. has so far not accepted this unequivocally, it is known that all systems have a finite failure rate. You can work to minimize that rate; you cannot eliminate it. Hence, collateral damage is a reality of war though lamentable.

Simultaneously, while lamenting the loss of innocent civilian lives in Baghdad, the media should have taken note of the fact that the scud missiles being constantly fired by the Iraqis on Kuwait have a very low level of precision. It is only providence that any of these have not landed on a heavily populated area.

In the last Gulf war, some did, in Israel. All that can be fairly said is that one side has been deliberately targeting non-military objectives, the other has been trying to avoid these civilian targets and both have, at times, failed to achieve their objective.

Evidence is now surfacing of the links between Iraqi regime and Al Qaida. The Sarget camp in Northern Iraq has thrown up evidence that Ansar al-Islam was actually the link between Iraq and Al Qaida. More evidence may come up in coming days. Yet, in matters relating to terrorism, evidence in conventional sense of criminal law is hard to find. It should not even be demanded.

When you are dealing with enemy of the society at large, you apply the laws of war, not the domestic criminal law. When the future of the large mass of a society is at stake, you take note of what in law is called "res ipsa loquitur" - the facts speak for themselves. In that situation, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The reasons for opposition to this war are varied and equally irrational. Some are against this war because they see it as a war against fellow religionists. They would rather have hordes of their co-religionists oppressed and killed by a dictator than see them dying as "collateral damage" in action by forces which, to them, represent forces of a rival religion.

Some, as in India, support this war because someday this regime had voted in favor of India and against Pakistan at the UN and the U.S. has consistently voted against India. Some oppose it because they see the U.S. as an equal, if not a greater evil, and do not consider it rational to see one evil being eliminated by another.

All war is evil. Yet, so long as evil is lawfully established somewhere as the law of the day, war will continue to be lawful and the lesser evil. It was so against Hitler during the Second World War. It is so against the Iraqi regime in the current war.