When Will It End??????

Dear editor:

Iraq has redefined civil war -- with Shiites and Sunnis killing each other, militias battling the government, insurgents targeting coalition forces and al-Qaeda in Iraq fighting everyone. Over two million Iraqis have left their country because of this civil war, another one and a half million have been displaced within the country, and Lord knows how many of them truly have died during the “Bush War.” That’s a total of almost four million human beings who have suffered because of a civil war the administration in Washington refuses to admit is in progress. Four million who might question whether they are better off now than they were under the dictator Saddam Hussein and his hated regime.

The White House has said in a statement that defining a date in 2008, or any other time, for an American military pullout from Iraq would place freedom and democracy at grave risk, embolden our enemies and undercut the administration’s plan to develop the Iraqi economy. So when will it be safe? Two years from now? Five years? Ten years? Shiites and Sunnis have been fighting for fifteen hundred years with no end in sight. And a pull-out would endanger us here in the United States? Whenever, if ever, we leave that beleaguered country, tomorrow or ten years from now, Islamic Extremists will hate us and try to harm us and the rest of the West. Timing has nothing to do with it.

The war in Iraq is not the answer, and never was. If anything it has opened a Pandora’s Box that has made the world a more dangerous place. Responsibility for that huge mistake and miscalculation lies squarely on the shoulders of Bush/Rove/Cheney/Rice and those brilliant neo-cons who lied to us and the rest of the world about the perceived dangers of leaving Iraq alone. Their stubborn, egotistical stand on this war only kills and maims more of our troops. The numbers speak for themselves and undercut what these four have been saying about improvements in the war.

The war started in March 2003, and four years later we are experiencing the deadliest month of March on record. For the month in 2003 the total American deaths were 65; in 2004: 52; in 2005: 36; in 2006: 31; and as of March 27, 2007: 77. That’s with four days to go in the month. On top of this, if you look at the first quarter of the year, instead of just one month, the story is just as bad. For 2004: 119, 2005: 200; 2006: 148; 2007: 239. That’s improvement?

By staying in Iraq we are not honoring those brave Americans for what they “died for,” but rather destroying what they “lived for.”

More Abuse of Power

Dear editor:

Evidently Attorney General Gonzales and FBI Director Mueller are both doing “a heck of a job.” After all, under Mueller, the FBI has collected intimate information about the lives of 52,000 innocent Americans and stored it in an intelligence database accessible to about 12,000 federal, state and local law enforcement authorities and to certain foreign governments. They did all this collection through telephone records, e-mail addresses, and employment and credit histories of people including American citizens and green-card holders. All of this has happened due to the direct abuse of the “Patriot Act” by agencies that are supposed to protect our rights.

The White House issued a statement from Brazil that Mueller and his boss, Gonzales have “worked hard to acknowledge it should have been handled better and are taking appropriate steps” to correct this abuse of our civil liberties. Guess they truly are doing a “heck of a job.” The statement went further to say “they’ve been accountable and are taking action.” Accountable and taking action? How can you be held accountable when you keep your job?

Answer to Ignorance

Quite often the hate mail and hate phone calls I receive in answer to my letters to the editor wind up in the local newspaper, in which they do not disagree with my opinion and offer an alternative, but rather attack me personally. The paper has never published any of my answers to this hateful writing in the paper. But, I keep writing and hoping maybe they will allow me a defense. This is one of those times, and here is what I have written. I can only hope they print it, even though I really know deep down that they won't.

Dear editor:

So very interesting to read a letter in the paper from Michael Ieyoub, in which he spends most of his time attacking me and my writings. To quote Mr. Ieyoub’s warped history and statements on my criticism of President Bush; “All he cares about, with the rest of the Democrats in Washington , is to destroy Bush.”

I have sad news for Mr. Ieyoub. It isn’t just me and other Democrats who are unhappy with Mr. Bush and his war policies, but rather two-thirds (2/3) of the country has expressed that unhappiness. There have to be a lot of Republicans and Independents in that group.

And knowing Mr. Ieyoub’s disdain for factual history, I must point out a quotation from a famous Republican President, Theodore Roosevelt. He stated “To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American people.” Amen to that Mr. Ieyoub.