To the surviving family members of the estimated 20,000 to 100,000 Iraqis who have died since the American led invasion and occupation of your country I offer the following:
While I have been opposed to this action since its inception, I have spent the past 3 years trying to find some rational reason why this military adventure into your county might be justified. Over recent weeks, in our houses of congress, there have been discussions about what our mission is and how we will know when we have succeeded. During these discussions there has been something repeated that I have heard over the entire course of this invasion and occupation and yet never really absorbed its full impact.“In this effort, we have chosen to fight the terrorists on their turf so that we don’t have to face them at home.” In adding up all of the points in the discussion on why we entered Iraq, what we found to be true after the invasion, and why we are still there, I find that I am most troubled by the sentiment expressed as,“fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here.” In other words, we are using your country as our battlefield so that we do not fight our own battles on our own soil. In so doing we are saying that Iraqi lives are valued lower than American lives.
Before we invaded Iraq, we were told that Saddam Hussein had amassed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and that he would certainly offer them up to the terrorist networks he supported. We were told that we would be liberating the Iraqi people who were living under the repressive government of Saddam. It did not take very long for the military of the United States to meet those goals. It was quickly proven that there were no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and yet the argument has been made that by toppling Saddam, we effectively kept him from ever coming back later to develop or distribute the weapons he no longer had. We also quickly discovered that there was no network of terrorists in Iraq. So, having accomplished our mission of removing the threat of WMD and liberating the Iraqi people from the grip of Saddam Hussein, why do we still remain in Iraq? Apparently the part of the plan that was kept from the Iraqi people (as well as most Americans) was that by setting up an occupying force in Iraq we could entice the terrorists to come into your country so that we could fight them on Iraqi soil and not on American soil. Apparently it was decided somewhere along the way that, in America’s war on terror, no price or sacrifice was to high – for the Iraqi people.
Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue
Mike's Blog Round Up
49 minutes ago
3 comments:
You're right, Chad, it is a tragedy, an abomination. Tears well up from the hearts of all good people at this criminal war, which is fought only for profit and greed. I will never accept this behavior.
I am ashamed at the jingoism and barely concealed racism in the statements by some members of congress in the past week or two. Their insulting and condescending comments about the antiwar community are very offensive, of course.
These people are pathological liars, repeating lies, one after another, that the military is defending america, that "america" is under attack, that it is treasonous to oppose the governments' policy (even when it is blatantly illegal. ) To unpack the lies in their speeches would take even longer than each speech since the speeches are literally, an unbroken series of lies. These people,these members of congress are mentally ill. They are sociopaths -- people who kill without cause, who kill people out of abstract and lunatic belief.
These congressmen, supporting the occupation of Iraq, kill people who are completely innocent of doing any injury to America.
Chad, Thank you for continualy expressing bad thoughts on a bad war. Our local leaderships latest failure to support John Kerry's attempt to bring our troops home is mind boggeling but consistent with their past poor judgements. "Staying the course" is only prudent. I look forward to your next shoe. I just wrote a short eulogy for John O'Neil, a Viet Nam vet. He had fought the devastating effects of agent orange for 30 years and died of cancer last week. Was he just another disposible cog of the new world order?
I have written letters to editors about this topic, emphasizing the hypocrisy of the right-wing Christians (theocrats) who claim to be followers of the Christ, yet use the meme, "Let's fight them over there so we won't have to fight them on our soil." Bush uses this frequently. So does Sen. Frist. So do MANY other members of Congress and the Republican administration. I can think of nothing LESS Christian than wishing the violence and death upon our "neighbors" in the Middle East or Afghanistan or N. Korea. The Bush Administration refuses to practice diplomacy, choosing instead to appeal to the most unChristian of our human instincts. Truly Christian people need to look deep into their own hearts and ask themselves, "What kind of 'Christians' are these people that I helped put into power?"
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