Philly.com
DEAR CONGRESSMAN MURTHA…By JOHN A. LUCAS
ISAW YOU ON TV recently. With all the venom and bile you could muster, you pronounced, “This is George Bush’s war.”
I understand fully what you were saying. You were telling the country and – more import- antly – our enemies, that this is not your war, that you do not support it.
More than that, you were saying that it is not your party’s war. And, you were telling Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden and their jihadist allies that it is not America’s war: “This is George Bush’s war!”
You are wrong, congressman. Dead wrong. You are wrong on three levels: institutional, historical and moral.
On the institutional level, Congress voted to authorize this war. Virtually every prominent Democratic politician spoke in favor of its objectives – Hillary and Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Madeleine Albright and Joe Lieberman, to name just a few.
Many now conveniently ignore or seek to rationalize their vote. A few courageously stand by it.
But, it is not Congress’ war, either. When Congress voted to authorize the war and the commander-in-chief gave the order to initiate it, it became our war. Ours: yours, mine, the country’s. Our war, sir, not George Bush’s.
You are wrong, too, about history – past and future. You were referring, of course, to the Iraq “war.” However, history tells us that this is one battle in a larger war against radical, fascist Islamic fundamentalists who seek to conquer.
Do you know your history, sir?
Do you listen to what our enemies say?
Listen, they will tell you: They seek to restore Islamic rule and sharia law over that portion of the world that they regard as historically “theirs.”
They mean not only the Mideast, but northern Africa, central Asia – and even Spain.
Then, they seek to expand that rule by imposing the same regime on any country where there is a significant Muslim population, anytime. They mean Europe, Nigeria – keep your eye on Nigeria, congressman, it is already happening in that most populous country of Africa – and, yes, the United States.
Do you deny any of these things? On what basis, sir?
They rightfully identify the United States as the sole power capable of standing in their way, of marshaling opposition to them.
Calling this battle “George Bush’s war” won’t blunt their strategy. No, it supports it.
Have you forgotten the other Islamic fascists’ battles against us, indeed against the world?
Do you remember the airplane hijackings, the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the USS Cole, the bombing of a barracks at a U.S. air base in Spain, bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the World Trade Center in 1993, in 2001?
They all are part of this war that George Bush did not start.
Yet they are not even the beginning of this war, congressman. This war has been going on for centuries, and it is not going to end if we retreat now, as you advocate.
Finally, you are wrong on the moral level.
Let me explain, lest you think that you have a monopoly on morality.
My son is now preparing for his second combat deployment in this battle. He will tell you that it is his war.
In his first combat tour, my son wrote: “I truly see this as a battle between the forces of good and evil. How can anyone not? Good brings hope to a whole people that have never known any and evil cuts the heads off innocent civilians on TV.”
THAT SORT OF sums up the morality that our soldiers see. He and his comrades would like to think that they are not fighting this alone, that this is not just their and George Bush’s war.
They would like to think that they fight for this country, including you, congressman.
It is their war, it is my war, and it is this country’s war.
My son’s life, and the lives of all the men and women fighting this battle are too precious to be endangered by politicians who give aid and comfort to our enemy in order to score rhetorical political points.
If you will not desist, I can only hope that responsible members of your party will repudiate your dangerous rhetoric and condemn your assistance to our enemies.
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John A. Lucas, a lawyer in Knoxville, Tenn., is a West Point graduate and was an infantry platoon leader in Vietnam, where he earned four Bronze Stars.
Please Click
Image below to
watch Video of Democrats
speaking of Saddam BEFORE
we went to War in Iraq
The Bush administration was handed 8 years of intelligence from the Clinton Administration showing that Saddam had WMD’s. For 8 years, Bill Clinton preached to the nation that Iraq had WMD’s and would use them if he got the chance.
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html
Now we have Generals in the Iraq military saying that they had the WMD’s but they were shipped out of the country prior to the war beginning. For some reason the MSM and Democrats want to discount what these former Iraqi Generals are saying.
You didn’t have the Dodgy Dossier scandle that we in the UK had after it was revealed inteligence services were ordered by a minister to ‘sex up’ a report to provide stronger evidence of WMDs than they actually had.
So, lets see what had actually been found in Iraq:
* Aluminium tubes for centrifuging uranium or constructing missiles… later experts concluded the tubes were usless for either of these.
* Two mobile bioweapons refinary trucks. Which showed no signs of ever having been used.
* A vial of deadly botulism toxin hidden in a doctors home… later found to be intended for use in cosmetic surgery. The doctor had hidden it, afraid that the American investigators would find it and conclude he was involved in bioweapons research.
* Someone who actually claimed to be involved in WMD production… but was actually a truck driver with delusions of grandeur, whoese story conflicted with satalite-photo evidence. Inteligence gave him more credability than was deserved, so desperate were they to find weapons.
* Gas shells – left over from the first gulf war, and well past their use-by date.
* And the latest in the long line of “We found them this time, really!” events: A general or two saying that WMDs were there, no doubt being offered a very large reward. And conveniently, all the evidence which may have supported them was destroyed during the invasion.
What I see is Inteligence clutching desperately at straws, grasping every tiny shread of hope that they might find the weapons.
Accept it: Saddam had no WMDs, except possibly some next to usless leftovers. And even if he did, he had no delivery mechanism that would get them further than the adjacent country. You might as well talk about how he was a secret Al Quieda supporter – there is about as much truth in either of those.
Saddam did try to give the impression that he may have had WMDs – just for intimidation though. He played a very dangerous game, and lost.
Hi Bob, great post!
I agree they did move them and they had plenty of time to do it too. Blix took forever with all his trips back and forth it felt more like he worked for Saddam then he did for us.
Suricou Raven, if Saddam had no WMD’s, what was he using on the Kurds? Why did we fly air sorties all through the 90’s to protect the Kurds…I know, I was involved. Why are General Officers saying that they, the Generals, had WMD’s?
Do you have any idea it is to hide a WMD? I’ve worked nuclear armed B-52’s and I assure you that in my two car garage I can store at least 3 cruise missiles, or a half dozen of SRAM’s, or a couple free falls. How easy do you think it would be to move and hide artillery shells equipped with chemical or biological agents? Do you have any idea how much death just a couple gallons of certain type of agents can cause? When it comes to NBC agents, it doesn’t take a whole lot to cause a lot of death and destruction.
Good one Bob!!!
The post-invasion search found a vial in someones home fridge. It must have been quite through.
All that is known really is that Saddam once had some chemical weapons. Gas. And there is no proof that he still had them.
Its quite certian he had no nuclear weapons. The weapons could be hidden, but not the facilities to manufacture them (See Iran). And it would be an idiotic country indeed that sold ready-for-use nukes to him.
Chemical and biological weapons are much easier to produce. Cant be that hard to grow some turburculosis in culture. Still, Iraq has been examined in great detail – and there is no evidence. Not one scientist has admitted to working on a WMD program. No facilities other than the mysterious unused trucks. No purchase orders. Nowhere with a suspicious number of freshly-steralised petri dishes.
Suricou Raven,
BobF is correct. Very easy to hide things, very difficult to find them. Try this; I go to a remote desert location and bury five 55 gallon drums. Three months later, you have to go find them, given a modest fifty square mile area to look. Get the point?
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_247.shtml
This link shows the effort Sadaam’s generals made to hide at least 30 aircraft. Why not WDM’s?
Their still finding aircraft and tanks buried in the desert.
Did you know that aircraft have gone down in the Rocky Mountains in the United States and they still haven’t found them? Only recently they found a WWII aircraft that crashed in the US. Why do you and others think it’s so easy to find these weapons? Do you think they have neon signs on them indicating what they are and where their at?
Do you realize that extra hot water heater that Abdulla has in his place can actually be a storage container for Chemical or Biological agents. The stuff isn’t hard at all to hide. You can hide enough under your kitchen sink to wipe out your city.
You don’t need much of a facility to manufacture chemical and biological agents. Why, in the US, meth users manufacture the stuff in basements all over the place. They are making stuff that if made wrong could result in what would be known as a Chemical Agent (WMD). This is done in basements in suburban neighborhoods all over America, right now, as I write this and you read it. When the cops bust them, they wear chem. suits in the place and also when their cleaning up the mess; their’s a reason for that. So, how hard do you think it would be for Saddam’s people with unlimited funds and recourses to manufacture that stuff; considering it could be made in any kitchen or basement in Iraq?
Common, Suricou Raven, start using your head and quit drinking the Kool Aid the Democrats are passing out.
I doubt it was Kool Aid more like Payote buttons,
If Saddam didn’t have any Nukes he had all he
needed to get one off the black market(money)
and lots of it…All he need be was be the
the middle man,get the point? there is a real
likely hood that Soviet Spetsnaz troops,thats
special operations Raven! came down through Iran
and removed all the WMD…Its a sorry point to
make but I don’t think we have been hit hard
enough for the folks to belive that a bunch of
whack jobs wan’t to kill us and if they are stupid enough to do it again,I feel sorry for the Muslim here as a hard rain is going to fall!
Now you are just sounding paranoid. How convenient for you to be able to demand your opponents prove a negative – a tricky thing to do as the best of times. No search can be through enough to satisfy you.
But then, what if we search every house, every individual… every last grain of sand in the desert, and still find no WMDs? Well, in that case, the russians must have snuck in at some point and ran off with them all!
At least we seem to have agreed he had no nukes. If they were that easy to get hold of, Iran wouldn’t be risking international action right now.