Saturday, October 27, 2007

Open Letter to Congress and the Senate

I am an old disabled infantry sergeant, so I know who will tell the truth when it is asked of them, Command Sergeant Majors, First Sergeants, Staff Sergeants, Buck Sergeants, First Lieutenants, Captains and Majors. If you want to really know what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, call these men and women into a hearing, either in Washington D.C. or go to the bases where combat troops are at and hold some field hearings, ask the questions of them, that General Petraues couldn't answer, morale what is it really of the troops who have been there three and four times? How are the families of these troops dealing with the multiple deployments, what are the divorce rates of these men and women.

Tough questions that need real answers, not questions of is the Iraq War vital to National Security, that is up to you to decide, not the Generals or the troops. All wars are political, the Generals do not declare them, politicians do, yes the President is a politician and he decides matters of war, just ask him. So far all you have been able to do is fund it.

In todays Washington Post, "Not Another Life" should have all of you, the 435 members of the House and the 100 members of the Senate, asking yourselves, did we ask General Petraues the right questions in September? Of course you "didn't" otherwise we would not be reading continuing stories of this nature, month after month. There is an excellent diary about this article written by Skywalker1 20 09 that got very little attention earlier.

How come the reporters can ask the right people, the ranks I mentioned above and get the answers, and Department of Defense restricts lower ranks from testifying to Congress, exactly who is in charge of this nation, DOD or Congress?

How can Secretary Gates forbid hearings where you question combat troops on the questions that need to be asked of them, not their Commanders.

I hate to tell this to you, but Commanders are Politicians, just like you all are, if they want to keep their jobs, or get their next promotion, then they give the answers their bosses want to hear.Not the real truth, but the couched version of the truth their boss wants you to hear, and bottom line the boss is President Bush.

Remember what the Navy did to Commander Swift, the JAG Officer that beat the administration in Hamdan VS the US? The Navy refused to promote him to Commander, and he was released from the Navy because he was passed over for promotion, during a time of war? Why, he obviously is an excellent lawyer, so why was he denied promotion? Because he beat President Bush and VP Cheney's policies in the Supreme Court. It is detailed in this Cenk Uygur Huffington Post article.

There are many stories of how the "troops" are fed up with the Iraqi Policy and feel that their mission as explained by the White House is not attainable, given the Iraqi Government and the Iraqi Police and Military situation.

So how long are you willing to keep the purse strings open to fund this Bush/Cheney folly? Yes, we are in this mess, but how best to get out, it will take better minds than mine to figure it out, but after five years it is time to do something different, demand the President pull the troops out of Baghdad and put them near the borders of Turkey (to stop that invasion, that is quickly coming) the Iran border to stop their interference, the Syrian Border to stop incoming insurgents, and yes even the Saudi border to stop the money from coming into the Sunni's. Let the civil war work itself out, and support whatever government is in place when it is over. Then maybe we can pull our troops out, completely.

If you can't find it in your heart to redeploy them now, demand mission change, and keep sending the President the bills until he gets tired of vetoing them. The American public is behind you, we do support the troops, we want this war to end.

You are elected all of you, Republicans and Democratic office holders all, even the few Independents, to do the people's work, not the Bush Administrations, with a 70% support for ending the war, what more do you need to grow a backbone?

Any elected official Democratic or Republican that can't support mission change and get our troops out of the middle of this civil war, should be replaced in January 2009, just like President Bush and VP Cheney and friends.

The old adage throw the "bums out" should apply in November 2008, all incumbents that cannot support legislation to change the mission should be challenged and hopefully removed from office. You should NOT be continuing to fund this Presidents misguided policy of dumping another 200 billion into Iraq and Afghanistan without some sort of real accountability and change, the troops deserve your real support. Not lip service, Veterans Day is coming, show them you really do care. Take the fight to the White House with the checkbook.

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