Yes, U.S. is an occupier in Iraq

In your Jan. 23 editorial "U.S. not 'occupiers'," you severely reprimand those who would call U.S. forces in Iraq "occupiers," instead of - as you prefer - "liberators."

Yet, on the same day, on Page 13A, your newspaper carried a Knight Ridder "news analysis" story by Tom Lasseter and Jonathan Landey. If I may quote from it: "The analysis suggests that unless something dramatic changes ... the United States won't win the war. It's evident among military thinkers that insurgencies are especially hard to defeat because the insurgents' goal isn't to win in a conventional sense but merely to survive until the will of the occupying power is sapped."

There is that word: "occupier."

Moreover, may I remind your readers to be as respectful of domestic opponents to the war as you ask the opposition to be respectful of President Bush and U.S. troops in Iraq.

Jurgen Brauer, Augusta