To the Editor:

Last month (the word just got out) GIs bulldozed crops to punish

the farmers collectively for not turning in guerillas. They played

jazz during the operation, to add insult to injury. One GI cried.

Children lay in front of the bulldozers, but were dragged away.

Asked how much his orchard was worth, a farmer said, “If they

cut off my hands, would you ask how much they were worth?” (London

Independent, Oct. 12).

United States is finally resorting to fairly brutal collective

punishments (like

Israel destroying Palestinian homes), but they’re just brutal

enough to recruit more terrorists, not brutal enough to stun

terrorists into stopping.

Now Syria did, years ago, manage to stop fundamentalist

terrorists.

They murdered a whole town-full of people.

Will United States get serious about this? Will the American

people stand for it?

But come to think of it, we slaughtered the whole village of My

Lai-yet the Vietnamese drove us out. Some natives are just too dumb

to surrender; and some invaders are too dumb to back out

gracefully.

Dan Lyons

Fort Collins resident