If you believe that we are going the wrong direction in our Middle East military engagements, please vote against President Bush’s request for an additional $50 million in emergency war spending.
That the president is already requesting such funding before the Patraeus shill report is issued shows that Bush will turn a blind eye to the reality of the situation in Iraq. We are losing this war, we have exhausted all military options, the surge is not working (nor will it ever work), and democracy can’t be force-fed to those who don’t want it.
Mr. President, your allusion to Vietnam was ironic, especially given that Nixon was loathe to accept the reality that our vaunted – and supposedly “perfect” – system of governance is not a cookie-cutter solution to the world’s political ills. Perhaps, Mr. President, you would have learned this first hand had you not evaded your military responsibilities.
But no. You have shown that history is not something to be learned and used as a roadmap for progress, but some fictitious fairy tale that can be re-interpreted to serve your own gains. It’s a strategy that was used to great effect by such leaders as Lenin, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Mao, Pinochet and Amin:
- distort history
- create an “us vs. them” conflict where one did not previously exist
- try and frame the issue as a “holy,” ideological struggle
- fight symptoms rather than fix causes
It’s time for congress to listen to its constituents: stop this madness now.
It’s not true that voting against this funding is a sign of weakness on national defense. Spending additional, obscene amounts of money on Iraq is not defending our home soil. All it is doing is entrenching our men and women, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, friends and neighbors in a land where they serve no purpose other than to reduce our country’s favor in the world view. All the additional spending does is further weaken security on our home soil: not just the decimation of the National Guard, but vital services that the middle class needs in order to survive.
So, dear members of congress, please do something to help all of the citizens of the United States: vote against the continued funding of the Iraq military action.
