The billions of world citizens who are opposed to the Bush war of choice in Iraq have indeed heeded the advice of Alan R. Jackson ("Put war dead in perspective," Sept. 25), and concluded that the war dead are not worth the needless deaths of any military or innocent civilians.

There is simply no moral or legal equivalency in considering the number of homicides in American cities in comparison with the unnecessary deaths in Iraq because such homicides have not occurred because of the decision of the immoral George W. Bush, which was based on a series of lies and in a pattern of deception.

The whole world knows now that Iraq never posed a threat prior to the American military invasion ordered by a commander-in-chief with a personal AWOL record. There is simply no justification for the unprecedented action of the U.S. military being the aggressor in an unnecessary war.

It is important for all Americans to now recognize that it is the Republican Party that has put politics above national security because the Iraq war has increased the worldwide hatred toward this great nation, and we are now far more vulnerable to more terrorist attacks in the United States because of the actions of a Republican president and a Republican Congress.

The sad reality is that there has been not one "success" in Iraq that is worth the life of even one of our American military. Nor is the military in Iraq doing anything to protect our freedom, which was never at risk, from nonexistent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

It is indeed important to put the war dead in perspective, and those Americans who use logic and common sense continue to oppose the threat to our national security that the Iraq war continues to impose. Opposition to the Iraq war is a sign of real patriotism.

Patricia Lavins

Aiken, S.C.