If politicians hadn't controlled the purse strings and insisted on troop withdrawal following the first Gulf War, and supported the Iraqi resistance as the military leaders had pledged to do, we wouldn't be fighting now in Iraq. Resistance leaders might still be alive and a free democratic government established there. So who is really responsible for the current war in Iraq?

Would we have a divided Korea had politicians let Gen. Douglas MacArthur fight the Korean War? Or would we have had a divided Germany had politicians listened to Gen. George Patton? Indeed, might World War II have been averted had British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain stopped Hitler when he invaded Czechoslovakia rather than proclaiming “peace in our time?”

If we don't learn the lessons of the past, we are doomed to repeat them. I am tired of politicians' continual bickering, pursuing their own agendas, and playing politics with the future of our country.

Frank Schetselaar

Orem