I reject my party's sleazy attacks on John Kerry
I would like to thank the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth for assisting me in my choice for president. As a retired Navy commander who worked on Dick Cheney's Pentagon staff when he was secretary of defense, I saw firsthand how he reacted when the first President Bush lost the election. He almost immediately deserted his post and left the Department of Defense scrambling for a replacement.

Now, he and President Bush have a group of former veterans attempting to defame a man who had the courage to go to Vietnam and fight for his country. Mr. Kerry also had the courage to disagree with the war (along with many other honorable Americans) after his service was completed. I think the right to disagree with the status quo is a right that all Americans have and is one of the rights I defended in my 22 years of military service.

I received several medals for my service. I met the criteria for earning each one, but I know others, in some cases, did much more to earn the same medal. I didn't turn down the medal just because I did less than another military member who earned the same award. Lt. Kerry did not give the medals to himself. They were awarded by his superiors.

As a Republican, I agree with what the party represents but I disagree with the sleazy tactics it is using to try to win an election. I therefore intend (along with my entire family) to vote for John Kerry.

MARTIN MASKIEWICZ
Trafford

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The pitfalls of U.S. involvement in Russia's battle with Chechnya
Regarding your Sept. 2 editorial "Chechen Terror: It's Time For the United States to Get Involved": Your empathy toward Russia in its plight with Chechnya is commendable; the slaughter of innocents by terrorists must be stopped. But I am not sure that we agree on these points:

1) I have faith that the Bush administration has already suggested and Russian President Vladimir Putin has already demurred U.S. assistance.

2) Is this a battle of independence, democracy, land, oil or religious fanaticism? If the latter, can there ever be a diplomatic or long-term military solution? Sadly, this Judeo-Christian/Islamic battle could go on for millennia. If it's independence and democracy, can Russia, economically or politically, afford to let this country go independent? And, hasn't the United States historically sided with freedom fighters? Can there be enough oil in Chechnya to matter to the United States?

3) I would prefer that we let Russia take care of its political problems on its sovereign soils. Our effort should be humanitarian through the United Nations, the Red Cross and other relief agencies. Maybe that is what you had in mind.

ANDREW BAILEY
North Side

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Too far
Shame on your editors for having printed a nastily heinous but expectedly hateful cartoon by Tim Menees on Aug. 22 (showing Republicans throwing a grenade labeled "Swift Boat Dirt" at John Kerry and calling it "Fragging").

In Vietnam, fragging was murder. It was devastating to all concerned. I know because I represented a Pittsburgh Marine accused of having killed one of his officers in Vietnam. I know how devastated his family was, even driving his mother to a suicide attempt. I can only imagine the desolate suffering of the officer's widow and three children.

All year long in our courthouses are trials because differing witnesses have differing views on matters that come before the court. It is to the judge and jury to decide which conflicting story is more credible.

The Swift boat people are several hundred men who honorably served their country, shed blood and were decorated for valor. To depict them as attempted murderers of Kerry is shameful. They are witnesses with different testimony, just as in court.

If John Kerry wishes to be known as a heroic leader, he should stand up and say, "I love all of my brothers who served with me in Vietnam. As with all men, I am saddened when my brothers do not agree with me."

The PG could bring maturity and honest discourse to these important debates by leaving some of Tim Menees' more hateful cartoons on the cutting room floor.

JOHN G. ARCH
O'Hara

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Compare, contrast
Aug. 27: New York City police randomly arrest over 260 cyclists from a group of 5,000 gathered for a peaceful bike ride promoting less polluting methods of transportation.

Sept. 2: We learn in the Post-Gazette that the "highly regarded" Royal Institute of International Affairs has presented a bleak assessment of the prospects for peace in Iraq ("Think Tank Paints Bleak Picture"). One page further on we find out that 1,700 people protesting the Iraq war and other disastrous policy decisions on the part of the Bush administration have been arrested so far at the Republican National Convention ("Protests at New Heights").

Meanwhile, the politicians responsible for starting the war in question, and for rolling back environmental protection measures at breathtaking speed, are wined, dined and whisked around in limousines, much of it at the expense of the very corporations profiting shamelessly from warfare and pollution, and all under the benevolent protection of the NYPD.

If nothing else, the Republican convention provided us with some fine examples of how utterly twisted the perception of "justice" has become, most notably since the Bush administration stepped into power.

REBECCA REID
North Side

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Medal facts
In her Aug. 31 letter "Kerry Crybabies," Sharon Clifford dismisses Kerry supporters with a reference to "thousands of Vietnam veterans who did not receive medals." Sorry to burst her bubble, but no such person exists.

Anyone who served on active duty during the Vietnam era was awarded the National Defense Service Medal. Anyone who actually went to Vietnam was awarded the Vietnam Service Medal.

The rest of her letter seems equally long on opinion and short on fact.

GEORGE SANFORD
Greensburg

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Exhibit A
I almost fell off my chair reading David Brooks' praise of U.S. Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., as one of the new breed of Republicans who are not "riven into ideological camps" ("Forget the Stereotypes," Aug. 31) and whose ideas should be embraced by President Bush. What threw me was Brooks' assertion that part of Souder's "complicated reality" is that he "doesn't believe in the theory of evolution."

I suppose falling off one's seat might not be of any concern to Souder, because, as the kind of independent thinker that Brooks praises, Souder may also reject the theory of gravity, not to mention Newton's Laws, germ theory and Euclidean geometry.

At a time when our nation's scientific pre-eminence is fading, imagine the damage that could be wreaked by any member of Congress -- Republican or Democrat -- who shared Souder's dismissive view toward a theory supported by a vast accumulation of scientific evidence if they were on a congressional committee that focused on science policy, science education, the environment or, for that matter, on any problem whose resolution rests on rigorous, objective, consideration of empirical evidence.

DAVID KLAHR
Professor of Psychology
Carnegie Mellon University
Oakland

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Heaven and Earth
As a child I attended the Methodist Church with my parents. When I married a Catholic I worshipped in the Catholic Church. I worship in my home, on my walks or anywhere that I feel the need to commune with my God.

As an adult, I came to believe that certainly God didn't care if I was of a specific religious orientation, as long as I "believed." My unease has always been of any group that claims that theirs was the only "true religion," that to be on their side was to be on God's side. How can the beauty of a tree, a sunlit day, a baby's smile or all the wonders of our world lay claim to one religion?

And so, in my religious as well as in my political leanings, I am an independent. God will always get my heavenly vote and the best man will always get my earthly vote.

D.L. McMAHON
Mt. Lebanon

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No leadership
The PG's Aug. 24 editorial "Unsettled Policy" asserts, "A Palestine can't be negotiated if the presence of Israeli settlers in territory that would be Palestinian is continuing to expand." The editorial gives this reason as to why President Bush ought to condemn Israel for pledging to build 1,001 new apartments.

It amazes me that even Israel's zoning permits make the news 5,000 miles away in a newspaper that does not even have one reporter in Israel. I suppose the writer noticed that in fact no negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have taken place in the past few months. This has nothing to do with building apartment buildings on open land where Palestinians do not live.

The lack of negotiations is directly due to the lack of any responsible leadership on the Palestinian side. The Palestinian leadership has chosen the path of terrorism and bloodshed instead of the peace that Israel has offered them time and time again.

NOAH BASS
Squirrel Hill