FATAL FLAWS IN THE WAR ON TERROR

Daniel Sneider (Opinion, Dec. 18) accurately points out the strategic error
in shifting the thrust of our ill-conceived "war on terror" to Iraq long
before consolidating whatever gains might have been enabled by military
action in Afghanistan.

Even before launching an attack on the Taliban and Al-Qaida in late 2001,
the Bush administration had blundered conceptually in announcing a "war on
terror" in simplistic (and polarizing) rhetoric.

Our problems with the Muslim world have more to do with its resentment of
decades of exploitation at the hands of the West. While it is true that
exploitation was facilitated by the feudal nature of Islam itself, we will
not solve the basic problem by capturing or killing a few men -- any more
than we "solved" our (self-created) problem with the Colombian cocaine
trade by killing the heads of the cartels.

That our troubles in both Colombia and Afghanistan are linked to illegal
drug markets dependent on our stubborn persistence in a failing domestic
policy seems to have escaped any notice by pundits -- but perhaps I'm
expecting too much.

Tom O'Connell, Redwood Shores