Editor’s note: This letter is in response to a guest column by Harry Wiley that ran in the Dec. 28 edition of the Current.

Your recent reporter’s obfuscation of numerous facts as well as history itself was so blatant, that I recalled Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, and the Mad Hatter’s falling down the rabbit hole and his re-emergence into an imaginary world much like the one the author must find himself residing in.

I can well relate to the author’s and the administration’s attempting to equate Hussein to Hitler and thus gain some sense of credibility or justification for our attack/war on Iraq. Certainly the current administration, like the author, has attempted to use every off-the-wall explanation they can find for the attack on Iraq. The reason I can relate to the evilness of Hitler is due to his being directly responsible for my dad having been killed in WWII while serving in the United States Navy.

However, unlike our current adventure in Iraq, the United States entering into a war against Germany was the result of the Germans declaring war on the United States.

Unfortunately, try as he might, the author cannot make a similar case that Iraq, Saddam Hussein, or the Iraqi people declared war on the United States and ergo there were still other avenues open to the United States to resolve any perceived grievances prior to our ever having to contemplate the engagement of American troops in Iraq.

It is my sincere belief that the main reasoning behind our involvement in Iraq was for George W. Bush to show to his dad, George H. Bush that he, “Georgie” was in fact a man and intended for our troops to avenge the planned attack on his dad’s life by Saddam Hussein during one of his father’s trips to Kuwait.

So, to conclude this phase of the fairy tale proposed by your correspondent. Hitler evil? Absolutely. Hussein evil? Absolutely. Did Hitler declare war on the United States of America? Absolutely. Did Hussein declare war on the United States of America? Absolutely not. Was he involved in 9/11? Absolutely not. Thus, the reason for our declaring war on Hitler and Germany was totally clear and without any need for further justification or embellishment to the American people other than the fact that “he (Hitler) started it.”

In the instance of our declaring war on Hussein and through him, the Iraqi people, the mere fact that our President had to “sell” his war to us in order to justify our engaging in it, made it immediately suspect.

Unfortunately for my country, many of my fellow citizens bought into President Bush’s lies about weapons of mass destruction, imminent threats to our country by Iraq, and the now totally discredited “mushroom cloud” that Hussein was prepared to unleash against us at a moment’s notice.

It was claimed, Hussein had purchased uranium yellow cake from Niger and was processing it into enriched uranium. Anyone still believing that fable, please contact me with regards to a bridge I have for sale in Brooklyn and some waterfront property I have available in Florida at an unbelievably low price.

With regards to the argument that our invasion of Iraq was to stop the slaughter of innocent Iraqi’s by a megalomaniac dictator, an argument for the war developed after the weapons of mass destruction argument that was proven to be a blatant lie fabricated by the administration. Certainly, Hussein did kill innocent Iraqis, but one must place the majority of their deaths in proper perspective.

The gassing of the Kurds? Yup, that did in fact happen, in 1989, and George H.W. Bush was the President of the United States and he did nothing. Next we had the slaughter of the Shia and Kurds after they rose up against Hussein in 1991 after Gulf War I during the first Bush presidency, and at his urging to do so, and in spite of our still having a huge, albeit withdrawn forces in Kuwait, once again Bush did nothing.

Did I miss everyone in this country getting upset over this and people wanting to declare war on Iraq again so we might avenge those that were slaughtered by Saddam? Seems to me, if we as a nation were not upset with Hussein’s slaughter of his own people in 1989-1991, certainly there was no reason to become upset thirteen years after the fact, unless, of course, you wanted to use that too as an excuse to go to war, which George W. Bush. apparently did, but only after the WMD excuse was revealed to be the contrived lie that it is.

Next, your author goes off on a tangent about the reception that Vietnam era vets received upon their return from that war, a subject he apparently knows the least about. Having served as a naval flight officer (O-3/LT) during the Vietnam war and having been discharged from active duty near the end of that ill fated adventure, I know exactly how I and my fellow aviators were welcomed back home. At the time, we were called “baby killers”, a term of endearment in vogue at the time and used against me and my fellow aviators by Americans when I reappeared in my homeland, dressed in my dress blues and bombardier wings, on my way to the numerous meetings of my reserve outfit.

To be blunt, I did not think we were treated very well by the American population, especially when we were acting on their behalf (weren’t we?). Also, it wasn’t the media’s or John Kerry’s fault as it was the out and out disgust that my fellow citizens felt over having to send their drafted sons to that hellhole.

Those same people feel much better about today’s military and its utilization, due too the vast majority of them not having any “skin in the game. The vast majority of their kids are not being called up to go to Iraq so much as it is somebody else’s kid, or that proverbial “kid down the street” for whom we all grieve, if and when he is killed.

Want to see how much support there is for this war in Iraq??? Initiate even an insignificant draft in which at least every draft age American gets just an equal chance – no deferments – to be called up and fight for what they claim to support vis-a-vis those ridiculous, inane yellow ribbon decals that proclaim for all the world to see, “I support our troops.” Doesn’t everyone?

With the advent of a draft, those stickers would rapidly give way to signs of protest and marches in the street and chants across this country of “hell no we won’t go” that in sheer volume, would supplant those of my generation’s war, Vietnam.

Quoted verbatim from your correspondent, “Most American military personnel who go back to Iraq after a tour of duty there want to go back.” Get real. Certainly, the author is not serious or else he believes your readership to be as gullible as he must be to even propose such an absurd suggestion. As Winston Churchill once said, “Nothing is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” That was true during Churchill’s tenure in the Boer war and was certainly true during WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Gulf Wars I and II.

That said, it doesn’t take a mathematical genius to figure out that the more one treks or flies into combat, the more likely you are to be wounded if not killed. I’d sure like to talk to the family and wives of the soldiers, airman, sailors and marines who sit around the table after dinner saying “I sure hope our Jimmy gets to go back to Iraq for a third tour,” as that must be a truly dysfunctional family right out of the Munster/Addams family mold, strange people indeed.

I believe, very sincerely, as was the case during the Vietnam war, if you’re going back for a second and third tour you might as well face up to it and go, but that certainly doesn’t mean that you want to go rather than your acknowledging the reality of your situation that you have to go.

Thanks to the current leadership and their failure to beef up our military in time of war, I am sure that there are lots of people who have gone back for their second, third, and fourth tours of duty, but that doesn’t make it right, or mean that they want to keep on going back. My solution? Anytime the President declares a state of war, he must also reinstitute the draft to support that war so that every American gets a chance to have some “skin in the game.”

With their own kids’ lives on the line we’d rapidly determine exactly how much support there was for a war like the one we currently find ourselves engaged in Iraq.

Next, your author tells those of us who are against the war in Iraq, and criticize our involvement in that war, that we are engaging in character assassination, distortion of the facts, etc. Excuse me, but when it comes to distortion of the facts, I have not yet heard anyone on my side of the argument to equal the distortions coming out of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the various other incompetents in this administration.

Next we are told that hateful tactics of smear and malicious slander is un-American and, yes (break out the flag boys, here it comes again), “unpatriotic.”

If that is the case, then certainly among the most unpatriotic human beings within the United States of America have to be the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and the whole leadership of the Republican party who did nothing during the Clinton years but engage in malicious slander and hateful tactics.

Lest anyone think that I do not support our troops, let me say that yes, I do. Do I think that our government owes them a better decision making process when it comes time for their employment and placement in harms way? Yes I do. Do I believe that the current administration has failed them miserably? Yes I do, in that they sent them into battle prematurely (shades of Vietnam), in a war that has turned into a war against an indigenous population on their home turf that is very similar to that which we engaged in Vietnam, and once we sent them, we didn’t send enough of them nor did we provide them with adequate equipment.

Their leadership also leaves a lot to be desired. What military commander would leave ammunition dumps unguarded and then, much later on, realize that the weapons that are killing most of our troops are made from the munitions that we bypassed and didn’t guard. Heck, couldn’t we have at least call in a very simple air strike and have blown them up?

That said, unlike Messrs. Bush, Cheney, Lott, Gingrich, Rove, and the other chicken hawks in this administration, even though I was draft exempt at the time as the only surviving son, I found the time to honorably serve my country, something that none of them can say.

In the instance of Vice President Cheney, he actively sought five deferments in order to not go to Vietnam. That said, after his four college deferments ran out, he at least had the good sense to get his wife pregnant so he could get a fifth deferment and thus continue on with his mission of not going to Vietnam, the result of which was someone else’s kid having to go in his stead and whose name might well be on the wall in Washington, what a guy! Thus, I certainly can say that I support our troops in Iraq lots more than any in this administration ever did support those of us who served during our war in Vietnam.

Dan Dwyer

Scarborough