Terrorist was left loose to give cause for war.(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR)(Letter to the editor)

Your recent article about the strange dealings of our government with a top al-Qaeda operative, Ali Mohamed, may be better understood in a historical light of the casus belli.

The Latin term, meaning a cause (or excuse) for war, has been employed to describe the machinations of kings itching to invade neighboring countries. One of the best known examples is the way that Otto yon Bismarck, the "Iron Chancellor" of Prussia, provoked Louis-Napoleon, Emperor of France, to declare war on Prussia in 1870 and then immediately attack France with great success, which led to the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine and the founding of the German Empire. Of course, this also led to the First World War and the destruction of the empire, perhaps a lesson for us.

Likewise, the U.S. government seized upon the sinking of the battleship Maine, an act of unknown parties, to declare war on Spain, though Spain had offered reparations. The pretense was the liberation of Cuba. The real objective was the conquest of the Philippine Islands. It took us two years and 66,000 dead Filipinos to complete their so-called liberation.

The sinking of the British liner Lusitania in 1915 was probably planned and calculated by then-First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. It carried 500 civilian passengers, many of them American, and was sent without escort into the path of German submarines. That event materially assisted in preparing the American public for war.

In 1941, President Roosevelt wanted war but the American public did not. He ordered the Japanese to get out of ...