Somebody Nudge the Record Player

I write this letter to publicly call for our complete victory in Iraq and to again thank all coalition forces for their continued sacrifices and noble efforts there. I strongly agree with President Bush that we must keep assisting the new democracy in Iraq until total victory there has been achieved.

Opponents of the war effort in Iraq continually undermine our troops in the field with their defeatist and self-serving calls for an early or declared withdrawal. Many of these same folks repeatedly accuse our president of having lied about weapons of mass destruction so as to get us into war, forgetting that even President Clinton attacked Iraq for this same reason in 1998.

Kyle

I write this response to publicly call for the televised executions of Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter. The difference between our demands, Kyle, is that while mine is highly unlikely to ever happen, it's technically possible.

This "complete victory" crap has worn pretty thin. You might as well write to the paper that you're an ethnocentric American who is completely uninformed about the culture of the nation we are occupying. Since that is how your letter translates, you might as well just say it up front and get it out of the way, instead of beating around the bush.

A quick lesson in Democracy, Kyle. Democracy comes from the Greek words for "people" and "rule". The idea, of course, is that the governed rule themselves. Since eighty percent of Iraqis want to see a timetable for America's exit strategy, if we were supporting democracy, we would respect the wishes of the majority. Of course, we're not supporting a democracy, we're occupying a country by force. You can't get much more undemocratic than that, can you?

Before this war began, Iraq was a nation of three opposing groups held together by totalitarianism. I'm certainly not defending Saddam Hussein... he was a viscous asshole. The responsibility for overthrowing his rule, however, fell on the people he was oppressing. Such a struggle against a mutual enemy could have formed a bond between the people that could have translated into a stable government. Since they never had to undergo this struggle for themselves, however, those bonds don't exist. There is little doubt that were American forces to pull out of Iraq right now, civil war would be inevitable. The problem is, there's not much American forces can do to repair the damage now that it's done. At some point we will need to pull out, and when we do, whatever veneer of democracy we've propped up will fall. This is the fate we've doomed an entire nation of people to. I hope you feel safer, Kyle, because a lot of Iraqi children can't.

Now, on a more personal note, I'd like to know exactly how opposing this war is in any way self-serving. You can say I'm misinformed, or that I don't understand foreign policy, or that I'm a shithead. You're wrong (with the possible exception of the last point, which I'm willing to entertain the possibility of), but you can at least defend those positions. I assure you, the only thing I've gotten out of the stress and irritation is about 35 pounds, a case of insomnia, and a developing ulcer. Yours is the path of least resistance, Kyle, not mine.

Our president did lie about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, as well as numerous other things. This administration is regarded as one of the most secretive America has ever had, and when things leak out that they don't want leaked, or when public opinion demands answers, they lie to maintain their secrecy. You can support what they're doing, Kyle, but you'd have to be certifiable to claim that this administration has been up-front and forthcoming with the American people. From nursery-rhyme patronization like "The terrorists hate our freedom" to bald-faced lies regarding policy like "A vote for war is a vote for peace," this administration has treated the American public like children, and those of us who relish our roles as governors in this democracy are pretty sick of it. The ends do not justify the means, Kyle. Claiming that they do doesn't make you a patriotic supporter of our troops. It makes you lazy.

Finally, I don't give a rat's ass what Bill Clinton did, and neither should you. For a group that claims to hate the Clinton legacy with a passion, you Limbaugh puppets use him as a yardstick for measuring acceptable policy far too often. The buck stops at the President's desk, not at an ex-president's policy. If you want to support current policy, go ahead and sound like a dipshit. Just try to refrain from making statements defending Bush's actions with the actions of Clinton.