I was born and brought up Republican. My mother, grandmother, grandfather and great-grandfather were Republican. The first time I was old enough to vote, back in 1972, I voted for Richard Nixon. And even after the Watergate scandal, I defended him. I was wrong, dead wrong.

In her letter June 14, Mary Jane Newell said liberal Americans take the blame out on the president. He is the problem and so are his associates, just as the Vietnam War was wrong. We could never have won that war and you do not free people by bombing the life out of them.

Iraq is equally as wrong. Our policies in the Middle East have been horrific to say the least, and this Iraq war is another injustice we have perpetrated on the Arab world. Unless we change our policies, we are causing these people to become terrorists because they feel hopeless against a powerful nation like ours.

I may have a bleeding heart, but I would rather care than be a mass murderer, and that’s what we have become in the eyes of the Arab world.

Newell seems to think war is a picnic in the park; ask the soldiers who fought in war what they think. Our more than 800 bright, young heroes who have lost their lives in Iraq should make her see how wrong war is.

War is never the answer in the civilized world we live in. Peace is the only answer.

Kathleen Morin, Rangeley