Being a lifelong moderate Republican, I find myself increasingly upset with President George W. Bush & Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (not Dick Cheney the Veep as earlier stated). The lies these two told prior to the invasion of Iraq boggle my mind and the continued unwillingness to be honest with the American people strains my ties to the Republican party ... do I actually have to switch to the Democrats after all these years?
Yes, Saddam Hussein should have been removed from power. But, so should a number of other tyrants around the world. The reason their people haven't been liberated, I suspect, has to do with the lack of oil under their countries. Of course, if Halliburton desired other minerals and made this fact known to Cheney, I feel we would be involved in Operation ______ Freedom quickly.
Or maybe we wouldn't ... the US military is stretched quite thin these days with troops in Iraq now having to serve 12-month tours of duty rather than six-month ones. Will recruitment suffer as this information spreads?
2 comments:
I'm not quite prepared to say that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were lying, but do believe that they made the decision to invade shortly after 9/11 and used intelligence reports to justify their decision. Otherwise, I agree with your rant and would add that I'm appalled at how poorly prepared they seemed to be about the occupation.
Tom Feller
Jim, I agree completely. The reasons given for war with Iraq -imminent threat from WMD, Iraq link to 9/11 and support of al-Qaeda -were bogus, and they knew it. Unfortunately we are now bogged down in a terrible, complicated situation we cannot simply walk away from without making things even worse. Meanwhile the deficit grows, American soldiers die in Iraq, and the situation in Afghanistan worsens because we are overextended.
ABB '04 (Anyone But Bush in 2004)
Grant Smith
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