Timelines for Iraq

I wrote the following to the Porterville Recorder newspaper in response to an editorial that Republican Representative Devin Nunes wrote in early May of 2007. I read the paper on line. My children were born in Porterville and we still have many friends there.

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So Devin Nunes (Member of Congress-San Joaquin Valley, California) wants to bring the troops home, but the Democrats are 'emboldening' the enemy by putting suggested timelines in a bill that gives more money to the military than the president asked for. The timelines are not mandates. There are no de-funding or automatic withdrawal provisions in the bill. Yet President Bush vetoed it and Representative Nunes supports that veto—of a massive funding bill with toothless timelines.

Suggesting to the Iraqi government that perhaps they should police their own country “is helping terrorists to win.” Over 90% of the Iraqis polled want us out of their country. Do we have to kill all of them before we leave?

The war will cost one trillion dollars. None of that money has been paid. It is all on our children's tab. How much more debt will we pass on to our children?

One of my former students died in Iraq. He was quiet and respectful in class and a good student. Now at age twenty, he lies dead. For what? Did he die to protect us from weapons of mass destruction? Oh yeah? Where are they? Except for a few unusable, rusty, twenty-some year, buried in the sand artillery shells with deteriorated mustard gas; there were no WMD. None. Not one usable WMD and certainly no WMDs capable of making a mushroom cloud. But Jeff is still dead.

Was it because of 9/11? Those terrible Iraqis in the planes that flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we had to fight them. Oh wait! No! They were mostly Saudi citizens from a country south of Iraq. They were Sunni Muslims. They were religious fanatics. Iraq is a majority Shiite Muslim country. Shiites hate Sunnis. Shiites do not cooperate with Sunnis. Saddam Hussein was a secularist. The Bath Party was a secular party. Saddam hated Al Qaeda. He suppressed them in Iraq every where he had control. The only Al Qaeda in Iraq before the war were in the north protected by our no-fly zone. So if the Iraqis had nothing to do with 9/11, why did Jeff die?

Did he die to keep the terrorists "over there?" Ridiculous! If they wanted to come here they could hop on any commercial jet and be here in hours. They have not done it so far. What makes Rep. Nunes think they will be more likely to do that if we leave them alone? All the Iraqis want is their country back. Let’s give it to them. I want no more dead former students.

Let’s call Representative Nunes and tell him. I am one life-long Republican who will not be voting Republican for Congress in the next election, unless elected representatives of my party start to wake up.

Former resident of Porterville