Dear Editor: President Obama appears ready to head down the same failed path that President Johnson choose during the Vietnam War. Records show that although virtually every adviser he spoke with, outside the military, agreed that escalation in Vietnam would lead to disaster, Johnson elected to send over 50,000 young men and women (some of them friends of mine) to their deaths. Of course his children, like Bush’s, never served, and I will bet that Obama’s never will either.

Obama is listening to the wrong people. Just as a surgeon sees only surgical solutions, a general sees only more war as a solution.

It is obvious that neither the people of Afghanistan nor the people of Iraq want us there. Our national interests do not lie there, only the interests of the war-making industry in this country. Would it not be wiser if we used the trillion-plus we will spend on death to create a greener America? Let’s build an interstate energy highway with wind and solar energy, and provide free higher education in exchange for a public service commitment. Or, how about quality health care for all citizens?

Let’s bring all our troops home from the Middle East, Korea, Germany and elsewhere. Why must we continue to spend more than all other nations combined on our military? Let’s simply notify our potential enemies that, if we are attacked, we will retaliate with great force against them -- including their civilian centers -- if ours are attacked. If they use a nuclear device against us, we will use bigger ones against them and those who harbor them. We must speak softly and strive for peace among nations, but carry a big stick should one be needed.

He who thinks making continuous war shows strength is truly the weak man.

Alan J. Jacobs

Lodi