In his column March 21, “Opportunity for citizens to take responsibility,” Leonard Pitts Jr. offers a clear-eyed summary and assassment of the Iraq war to date: It is the product of major deception, manipulation and exploitation of our fears. I will add to that, the exploitation of our patriotism and collective ignorance of so much of the world outside the nation’s borders.

Yet he seems to accept the idea that this information is now moot. What’s done is done… let’s move ahead seems to be the essence of that point of view.

I disagree, for although a distaste for impeachment and criminal proceedings in understandable, given recent history, to not hold those responsible for the needless death, destruction, suffering and financial costs of such a massive scale would be grossly unjust. And unwise as well, as it would leave a precedent for future administrations to behold.

A dangerous imbalance of power now exists, and power corrupts.

Are we, the people, really so complacent and helpless as to accept such crimes with a shrug or a “whatever”?

The opportunity in this is not just to learn something. When we do nothing, it shows that we really learned nothing, or don’t care. In either case, there is no moving ahead. We’ll just move on, leaving fertile soil for future abuses to sprout in. And, in a democracy, when that is the case, there’s nobody to blame but ourselves.

Steve Pritz, Auburn

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