Professors William Boettcher and Michael Cobb conclude that voters are closed-minded on Iraq because they won't reconsider their opinions now that the surge has reduced levels of violence. They miss the point completely: Iraq is not a success merely because violence is down. The war in Iraq still costs American lives and $12 billion of U.S. tax money per month at a time when our economy needs that investment at home.

Part of the reason for the reduced violence is that many parts of Iraq are now ethnically cleansed or we are paying our former enemies to be our friends; our troops will never be able to leave Iraq if we must meet conditions of "metrics of success." The Iraqi government is more friendly to its hated enemy Iran than to the United States, its supposed benefactor. We can't go after the ones who planned and executed 9/11 (and would do it again) in Afghanistan because our active military is engaged in Iraq.

Voters must make a courageous choice in November to bring in leadership that is not bound to the failed policies that keep us in the Iraq quagmire to the detriment of our own nation's needs.

Jim Lee, Rocky Mount

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