To the editor:

As a student at Central High School, I was concerned to read that my school's Amnesty International club is worried that the U.S. war with Iraq would infringe on Iraqi citizen's rights. What rights? I would like to remind the Amnesty club that one of the main reasons our president is leading a global coalition -- more than 45 nations -- against Iraq is because of Saddam Hussein's constant oppression of his own people.

If they will remember, it was Saddam's regime that recently burned a woman on a stake for merely selling kerosene to help feed her family. The same regime is also known for torturing and killing its own citizens to serve a political agenda.

The United States is not going to further the pain of the Iraqi people. We are going to liberate them from an oppressive tyrant.

MICHAEL JAMES ZIMMER

Cape Girardeau