Saddam Hussein cries out that "Bush is the criminal" and that the proceedings against Saddam are all for Bush to win re-election. I do believe that the Democrats have found their keynote speaker for their convention.

Jerry Powers
Anderson Township

Nation should indeed repay veterans

Somehow President Bush avoided smirking as he told veterans on Memorial Day that "America acknowledges a debt that is beyond our power to repay." Even as the GOP-led Congress sought to reduce Veterans Administration funding for 2005, his budget office had just released a memorandum instructing nearly $1 billion in reduction in the exiting veterans' health care budget. Now, as the president promotes $1 trillion in new tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and hints at new pre-emptive wars, he signals his party's intent to shirk our nation's "power to repay" its veterans.

Joseph Hager
Lebanon

Think for yourself, not as parties say

Toeing the party line only puts us at opposite ends of the rope. Whatever happened to voting our conscience and not what a party dictates? As a citizen it is my duty to examine each issue on its own merit and to not judge it based on a political affiliation. Do we really need two parties to tell us how to think? Be independent - think for yourself, and let's get the party-liners out of Washington. When was the last time the left or right gave us someone to truly stand behind? Parties are divisive and serve no real purpose anymore; we are too diverse and there are too many issues to think that two views can relate to all of them.

Matthew Long
Liberty Township

Thanks, but I'll see a better movie

The letter writers from Oxford were shocked, shocked by Fahrenheit 9/11 and are cajoling us all to see this film ("Take 'Fahrenheit 9/11' seriously," July 4). For half of March and all of April, every other person I met asked me if I had seen The Passion of The Christ and then inquired about my excuse when I said I had not.

Now I am deemed a political know-nothing if I choose to pass on Fahrenheit 9/11. I bet my capacity to engage in thoughtful political dialogue won't be impaired in the least by skipping this latest must-see film. I think I'll rent Breakfast at Tiffany's instead and then do a little shoe shopping.

Marilyn Slone
Forest Park

'9/11' factual, with black humor too

Michael Moore's splendid documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 isn't manipulative, as someone said in "Moore movie pulls large crowd here" (June 28). It is appallingly factual. The financial ties between the Bush family and the Saudi royal family were particularly hard-hitting. The movie isn't sensationalist at all, just factual.

Moore's attempts to get members of Congress to ask their own children to enlist in the military are very effective; only one member of Congress currently, according to the movie, has a son or daughter in the military at all. Moore has done a fine and occasionally witty job of investigative reporting. It's black humor with flair.

Daniel Brown
East Walnut Hills

Educate young Africans in U.S. ways

Regarding the syndicated column by Walter Williams "Poverty of most needy nations is self-inflicted" (July 4): He writes about the disaster in sub-Saharan Africa and correctly indicates that more foreign aid is not the solution. He calls for a lowering of trade barriers an approach unfortunately fraught with political difficulties here, especially during an election year.

One idea that might work would be an educational program whereby promising African students would be schooled at American universities in political science, government, economics and Western principles of tolerance and egalitarianism, with the idea that they will assume leadership positions upon return to Africa. Everything begins with education.

Paul Bloustein
Sycamore Township

'B.C.' Pledge installment is a classic

The July 4 B.C. ranks as my No. 1 all-time favorite cartoon. It depicted people reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, and each block contained some of the words of the pledge. When the time came to print "under God," the block was blank. I believe that more people thought about God this Fourth of July than ever before.

Kathryn L. O'Connell
Blue Ash