Now the election is over, I’d like to thank a few letter writers for making it an ugly and sordid testament to the depths some people will sink to manipulate the public. You know who you are.

If you focused incessantly on Hillary Clinton’s involvement in the Benghazi incident, I’d ask why you were silent when President George W. Bush’s illegitimate war in Iraq killed a thousand times more Americans. Why the silence? Do those soldiers’ lives not matter to you?

And for those who focused on Clinton’s email server and insinuated she should be in prison, your hypocrisy is showing. If anyone should be in prison it would be a president who lied this country into a dishonest war that killed half a million innocent people. But you let him off the hook. Conservative double standard?

By sowing hatred and slinging mud, you accomplished your agenda. I admit I was tired of seeing dirty tricks and the politics of personal destruction used against good people, but now I see the error of my ways. Fairness in politics is an illusion. Obstruction, double standards, and hypocrisy work. Those who displayed a willingness to say and do anything to win have set a new standard for political discourse. It’s the ISIS standard.

Thanks to editors of The Times for publishing letters from the lunatic fringe of the political right. I didn’t think torches and pitchforks fairly represent the collective voice of this community. They do now.

I was going to say we should stop shouting and listen more attentively, but the shouters won the day. Among them, I heard Gary Hulsey repeat a common conservative question in his recent letter: What was Hillary Clinton’s biggest accomplishment as secretary of state? He thinks the answer is nothing. I’d suggest Hillary successfully managed to avoid getting us into a hot war in another Mideast country.

Conservatives want another war, specifically war with Iran. That’s why they’re angry over President Barack Obama’s efforts to secure an agreement preventing Iranian development of nuclear weapons. This agreement was vehemently opposed by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., in a letter signed by 47 Republican senators. Conservatives and Israel don’t want that agreement because it interferes with their agenda for war with Iran. What they want in Iran is exactly what they got in Iraq: Regime change at any cost. They opposed Hillary because her administration would further entrench Obama’s Iran agreement, pushing conservative plans for war out of reach.

By supporting Obama’s Iran agreement, Hillary pursued policies that protected the diplomatic credibility of the United States, saved Americans a terrible cost in blood and treasure, and quite possibly prevented World War III. Not bad considering she faced overwhelming Republican opposition. Now Republicans can undo that agreement and have their war anyway. Americans will sacrifice more precious blood and treasure to accomplish the same thing we got in Iraq — nothing.

Remember the only beneficiary of the Iraq war was arrogant, selfish Israel. How much of our blood and sacrifice is enough?

Bruce Vandiver
Lula