Iraqi War Report

As I listened to Ambassador Crocker report to Congress, he made big point of the damage it would cause in human suffering, economic calamity, and the political ramifications in the area, if the United States should pull out of Iraq, and I am left wondering what the hell was this administration thinking when they took on the task of empire building in the first place?

It is quite a bit late for the Administration to be making this admission publicly. Dick Cheney made similar statements concerning Bush 41’s decision not to continue into Iraq after Hussein invading Kuwait in 1990.

It is particularly disarming and alarming that the President of the United States, leader of the free world, and his entire Administration, would fabricate reasons to usurp a legal government, solely for His personal agenda.

I am equally alarmed that members of the House and Senate rolled silently onto their backs and exposed their soft underbellies, and out of fear of appearing weak, fully supported Bush II’s plan to invade a sovereign county.

Where was the moral majority then? Where were the leaders of the country? Where were the American people? Why were the vast majority of people in this nation silent? This silence was the same as signing a blank check for Bush and his cronies. Bush and his cronies created such an atmosphere of fear that almost everyone (thinking that the surely the President would only speak the truth) believed in his assessment and his proposed remedy for the “smoking gun in the form of a (nuclear) mushroom cloud”. We have been hoodwinked in the style of the greatest Con Men of the past and present.

It is a sad state of affairs that the people we have elected to represent us in Washington D.C., do not do their jobs and verify for themselves, the case the President made to go to war. I would never have believed this error in our system could even have existed. That governing has become so complex that our representatives do not even have the time to read the proposals that come before the body before they a called to vote yea or nay. How can this ever be called representation of the people?

I participated in the public gatherings showing that we were not in favor of going to war in Iraq. Now, as a retired military person, I am not a pacifist. I believe in protecting our county. I don’t believe in getting rid of our nuclear weapons because I believe that there are those in the world who mean us harm. We must be prepared. We must be ready. But, I do not believe in toppling governments because it is expedient to the US to create countries willing to be allies in an area where there were none. I know the invasion was not that simple, and that there were ulterior motives such as oil. BUT THESE POLICIES MAKE US THE EQUAL OF OTHER EMPIRE BUILDERS SUCH AS GERMANY AND JAPAN. WE WERE NEITHER RIGHT NOR JUST IN OUR ILLEGAL ACTIONS.

I am ashamed of our actions as world citizens. I am ashamed that politicians have become gutless and leaderless hacks that have only their own reelection as their incentive, not representing the people. I am ashamed that our two party system as become so polarized that it has become virtually impossible to compromise positions in order to create laws for the people, not for big business or party needs.

I believe that if our elected officials don’t begin to truly battle for that which is best for the people, one of two things will happen; first, the people will put a stop to the current government and perhaps vote to make changes that make impossible the current state of our political system, and second, this country will dissolve into nothingness.

When will we get it together?