The several wire stories in the Feb. 27 Star Tribune urging that the United States remain closely engaged in military affairs in Iraq and Afghanistan for one reason or another should serve to warn everyone that these are precisely the excuses our capitalistic, oligarchical, plutocratic, hegemonic warmakers need to keep us in the Middle East forever — that we need to remain there, they claim, to control rich energy supplies and to maintain highly strategic geopolitical outposts.

Contact your president and commander-in-chief, your two U.S. senators and your U.S. House member, and demand total and immediate withdrawal of our troops and materiel.

No more good taxpayer money after trillions of bad, and for God's sake, no more wasted lives there on any side.

WILLARD B. SHAPIRA, Roseville