I'm Finally Attacked For My Views

In this morning's paper there was a letter from a gentleman(?) who had a different opinion of mine on the subject of the Status of Forces Agreement that appreared last week in the local paper. I sent the following to the paper and asked them to please print it as no one likes being attacked in print.

Dear editor:

I make it a point to never answer Letters to the Editor that involve criticism of letters of mine that have appeared in the American Press. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I believe that hearing both sides of a story is good. But I must make an exception to the letter of Walter Weidner, not only taking a different view than mine on the Status of Forces Agreement, but personally attacking me by stating “he is not competent or experienced. Evidently he has never been in military service.” (As a matter of fact I am surprised that the American Press would allow this.) Allow me to correct him.

My family has had a long history of service to this country both in and out of the military. My father served in World War II, my brother spent two years in the Orient in the U.S. Army, I was drafted into the army, serving two years active duty, two years active reserves and two years inactive reserves. In addition, my son is a career Naval Officer (Commander) and has served three years with Navy Special Forces and has seen action in Iraq on the ground with US Navy Seals, and has just returned from deployments in Bahrain and Qatar. I hold this history up proudly.

But in so far as Status of Forces Agreements having been used for years, that history does not make it right for the president, any president, to ignore the Constitution of the United States which gives power to the Senate to approve or disapprove foreign entanglements and treaties. Any true student of American history knows that. The president does not have “final authority” as you claim. Even the newly created government of Iraq knows that, as they needed confirmation by their legislature.

Bush Fun Trip

Dear editor:

I wonder what Congress will say about the president going one up on the CEOs of the Big Three in Detroit. They only took three private jets to Washington, but he took two giant 747s, a number of helicopters, many limousines, and a host of people to Iraq just to say goodbye. And he has the nerve to say that Americans are addicted to oil? Will someone tell him that our country is facing a severe financial problem and we can't afford his goodbye, fun trip.

Multi National Force??

Dear editor:

No one will argue with the fact that the biggest problems facing our country today are unemployment, recession, individual loss of financial future and corporate failure.

President-elect Obama, during his run for the presidency, promised to help pay for straightening out our economy by bringing our troops home from Iraq and thereby saving billions of dollars a month. This “new found” money could help finance all kinds of public projects and thereby put so many of the unemployed back to work, help American corporations, and give financial aid to ailing state budgets. I believe he still intends to do this, but at a slower pace. After all we have become just about the only backbone of the so called Coalition of the Willing, or by its recent, more popular name given to it by President Bush, the Multi National Force.

The original Coalition of the Willing, authorized by the United Nations thanks to the not quite so truthful arguments of the United States that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), had a total of 31 countries participating in the “liberation” of Iraq and the downfall of Saddam Hussein. Our country went in with a total of 250,000 troops, Great Britain went in with 45,000, and an assortment of 40 other countries supplied 20,000 additional troops. The English supplied the second largest contingent and the smallest involved, Iceland with 2 troops.

But where are all these countries’ armies today and how many are still fighting under our leadership? Today’s numbers are quite different as so many of our original “partners” have seen the light and gone home.

We now have approximately 145,000 troops in Iraq, the United Kingdom has 4,100, and the only other 6 countries there (Australia, Romania, El Salvador, Albania, Estonia, and Bulgaria) have a combined total of 1,400 members to aid our efforts. Not exactly an overwhelming group. Everybody else has gone home and it leads one to wonder, what do they realize that we don’t? Do they know that the job is way past done and we can’t see the forest from the trees?

We constantly hear that if we leave now that Iraq could descend into chaos. Isn’t it their country and isn’t it their choice? The original, original, original reason for invading Iraq was to depose Saddam and to do away with the WMDs. Saddam is gone and there never were any WMDs. Since there had to be a new goal for the war, it was to allow Iraq time to become a democratic nation and have an elected government. They have that. Victory for the Bush War than turned to allowing time for the country to train and deploy an army and police force. They have that too. We’ve been victorious.

So here we are, supplying 96% of the Multi-National Force (or Coalition of the Willing), spending 100s of Billions of dollars that could be used to pay for America’s huge financial problems, and exposing our troops, thank goodness in a lesser way than previously, to dangers. This is leadership?

Mr. Obama, the sooner we bring our troops home the quicker we can regain some respect in the world, and help to pay for the programs you stated we would be able to pay for with those savings. Please don’t get caught in the web woven by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Rice.