War

A U.S. military convoy sliced through the flat Iraqi desert before first light, carrying the last troops safely into Kuwait and ending America's costly and divisive war in a troubled land. When relieved soldiers got out on the other side Sunday, shouts of "Going home!" and "It's over!" mingled with bear hugs and high-fives. One soldier hollered, "I'm going to Disneyland!" Another, "A sweet, sweet Christmas. " The final vehicle passed a fortified Kuwaiti border police post eight years, eight months and 28 days after U.S. forces poured across the same frontier, 150,000 strong, sweating inside bulky chemical and biological protective suits, but convinced of a swift and certain victory.

The inside viewof Hanalei Just a quick note to say Christopher Reynolds did a great job representing Hanalei ["Rooted in Kauai," April 20]. As a born and raised Kauaian (who grew up on Weke Road), I must say I was surprised to open the paper at my current home in California and see my hometown taking over a full spread. Reynolds did a great job representing the island and calling out all the best restaurants and things to do - exactly the list I've sent to friends looking for Kauai recommendations.

'Declaration of War' MPAA rating: Not rated Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes; French with English subtitles Playing: At Nuart Theater, West Los Angeles

Rabbits "are helping win the war," proclaimed a Los Angeles Times article from 1943. Touted as a patriotic food during World War II, rabbits were raised by thousands of Americans in their backyards. Along with victory gardens, rabbits helped put food on the table when much of the nation's supply was shipped to soldiers overseas and ration stamps provided less at home. But even though rabbit consumption spiked during the war, it all but disappeared afterward. Think rabbit today and your thoughts probably veer to cartoon characters, cereal mascots, Easter and adorable pets.

Re "Waiting for the last plane out," Opinion, Dec. 23 I had tears in my eyes reading David Freed's Op-Ed article about not seeing his son, who is probably stationed in Afghanistan, this Christmas. I share his feelings of longing to be with a son at familiar family outings. My son flies air cover on six-hour missions over Afghanistan from the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower. From 20,000 feet he looks down on a land that seems so desolate and bleak. He is grateful not to be stationed on the ground, but he's perfectly willing to fly close to the ground to protect his comrades in arms.

'Women, War & Peace' Where: KOCE When: 10 p.m. Tuesday Rating: TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children younger than 14)

'Frontline: The Vaccine War' Where: KCET When: 9 p.m. Tuesday Rating: TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children)

The War on Moms On Life in a Family-Unfriendly Nation Sharon Lerner Wiley: 216 pp., $25.95

'American Experience: War of the Worlds' When: 9 p.m. Tuesday Channel: KOCE

President Obama declared an end to the U.S. combat role in Iraq this week, but his speech didn't include the word victory. One reason is that the U.S. combat role isn't entirely over; 50,000 American troops are still in Iraq, and some of them probably will be drawn into battle again. Another is that Iraq isn't at peace and doesn't have a stable government yet. As a political matter, the president would rather have been talking about the economy — the crisis on the minds of most Americans — instead of an almost-forgotten war that has taken too many lives, too much money and too much time.

A bitter political tug-of-war over who will host a Fourth of July fireworks show at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum took another turn Friday when City Councilman Bernard C. Parks withdrew his bid to host the show -- and said he would hold a separate event. Parks said he was pulling out because Councilman Curren Price had received a copy of his "blueprint" for the proposed event, which he argued should have remained confidential. He said he would hold his Independence Day fireworks event elsewhere, without indicating a location.

A determined historical sweep masks a small-minded bid for easy outrage and heartstrings-pulling in the schematic World War II drama "Walking With the Enemy. " Set in 1944, when the war was essentially over for the Nazis but their reign of terror in occupied territories was still going strong, the movie focuses on the efforts of a young, displaced Hungarian Jew named Elek (Jonas Armstrong) to find his family after escaping from a camp, which turned into a concerted effort to save many Hungarian Jews.

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy is being portrayed by some as a man of principle, an iconoclast who should be admired for his willingness to stand up to the federal government. But in fact he's a petty scofflaw who seems to think that he has the right to pick and choose which rules must be obeyed. Bundy is the cattleman who grazes his herd on federal land operated by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, but unlike more than 15,000 other ranchers, he refuses to pay the associated grazing fees.

TOKYO -- Hiroshi Kyoso says he values Japan's relationship with the United States highly and feels warmly about Washington's new ambassador to Tokyo, Caroline Kennedy. But as the 90-year-old veteran of World War II arrived Wednesday morning to pray at Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine -- a controversial site that commemorates nearly 2.5 million of Japan's war dead including 14 top war criminals -- Kyoso said he saw no connection between the shrine and Japan's ties with America. If a Japanese leader visits Yasukuni, he said, it's only natural.

Another day, another potential Steven Spielberg movie. As a number of competing projects and producers vie for the director's attention to be his next film, Spielberg has added a Cold War thriller starring Tom Hanks to his ever-expanding list of candidates, according to the Hollywood Reporter . The yet untitled film written by Matt Charman would tell the true story of James Donovan (Hanks), an American attorney who was enlisted by the CIA to slip behind the Iron Curtain and negotiate the release of downed U-2 spy plane pilot Gary Powers.

Along with its manicured greenbelts and meticulously neat neighborhoods, Irvine suddenly has something else on its hands: an international incident. Members of its vast Chinese American community are fighting a city decision to bow to the demands of Vietnamese Americans, who arrived by the hundreds this month to demand that Irvine abandon its plans to formalize a relationship with a town in coastal Vietnam. A parade of speakers spent hours pleading with council members to reject the proposal, saying it would be insulting for the city to forge a “friendship” with a country they'd fled to escape a brutal communist regime.

Re "The killing drones on," Opinion, Jan. 10 As Michael Kinsley points out, there are thousands and thousands of pages of legal analysis, treaties, definitions and conventions regarding the rules of war. All of these are internationally accepted. But now, our government is attempting to justify its use of drones in other nations by defining the legal justification for doing so after the fact. That would be akin to an accused murderer drafting laws on homicide after committing the act. We may have the need to use drones, but that need does not give us the right under current international laws and treaties to do so. Jean-Claude Demirdjian Los Angeles ALSO: Letters: Shape up or else Letters: Act now to save the planet Letters: 'Silicon Beach' has enough money

Maybe it was the emotion of the moment. Or the difficulty of trying to find the right word in his third language. Either way, when Galaxy midfielder Marcelo Sarvas likened last month's Champions League series with Tijuana to a war, teammate Baggio Husidic could only shake his head. Husidic has experienced a real war. Trapped between competing armies in his native Bosnia, Husidic and his family fled for their lives, abandoning their comfortable home for a squalid refugee camp.

Los Angeles' two greatest cultural disappointments of the past three decades may have been the failure of the Olympic Arts Festival in 1984 to mount director Robert Wilson's eight-hour international operatic epic, "the CIVIL warS" and the Music Center's inadequate support in 2000 of Frank Gehry's grand plan to renovate and urbanize the facility and reshape downtown's civic center in the process. All, though, is not lost. As part of Minimalist Jukebox on Thursday night, the Los Angeles Philharmonic reunited those two transformative artistic visions by presenting Philip Glass' contribution to "the CIVIL warS," known as the Rome section, in Gehry's successful contribution to the Music Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall.