Stars & Stripes letters for Saturday

[lebkuchen]

U.S. needs help in Iraq

A recent AFN radio news spot announced that the Bush administration had gotten former Secretary of State James Baker on line to help reduce Iraq’s foreign debt with several countries. A week later, the Bush administration then went out of its way to alienate a number of those same countries to whom the Iraq debt is owed. Less than a month ago, President Bush asked many of those same countries to donate money toward rebuilding Iraq.

I see a much better way to handle, rather than mishandle, the Iraq reconstruction initiative and avoid sending mixed messages. My recommendation is to follow through with the plan to have Baker seek debt relief for Iraq. At the same time, Baker should also make the $18 billion in Iraq reconstruction contracts available to countries willing to invest in the spirit and intent of the effort. But the Bush administration instead continues to go far out of its way to give lip service to a problem that need not have been a problem. The lip service now being touted is the same mantra heard shortly after the war, when it was noted that only those countries on the extremely slim list known as the “coalition of the willing” should benefit from any of the war’s spoils.

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Medical data
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At some point in his presidency, Bush must forgo his manic desire to grandstand with soldiers for his own self-aggrandizement. Instead, he should devote his remaining year in the White House to ensuring a constant exchange of information among our top military medical personnel and heads of government so that the care and treatment of our soldiers can be improved and maintained at optimal manning levels in preparation for further attacks. After all, wasn’t it the lack of shared information among federal agencies, or “dot-connecting,” that led to 9/11? No photo opportunity is worth the risk of being caught unprepared.

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Criticism familiar, still unfair
<snip>

It’s easy for the writer to drool with patriotic overflow and even go so far as to tell people who don’t feel like he does to get out of the country. Lots of them are in Arlington National Cemetery. And there are the rarely mentioned hundreds who have been maimed and crippled. They have to live years on end outside the norm without a real future. I don’t see President Bush taking pictures with them. It must be that they’re not able to gather around him cheering for the ever-important photo opportunity. Instead, they get the usual monotone of empty platitudes over the airwaves.

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http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=125&article=19426

[ClintonTyree]

1. This one bothers me..............

"It’s easy for the writer to drool with patriotic overflow and even go so far as to tell people who don’t feel like he does to get out of the country. Lots of them are in Arlington National Cemetery. And there are the rarely mentioned hundreds who have been maimed and crippled. They have to live years on end outside the norm without a real future. I don’t see President Bush taking pictures with them. It must be that they’re not able to gather around him cheering for the ever-important photo opportunity. Instead, they get the usual monotone of empty platitudes over the airwaves."

"Hundreds that have been maimed and crippled"? Thousands my friend, thousands! I wonder how much information the GI's get about the fatality numbers?
Still, it's good to see that our forces are in tune with what's happening, the folly of Bush's dirty little war and the cost not only in money, lives and limbs, but the psychlogical effects as well. Bring the troops home Bush!

[lebkuchen]

2. The second letter, read in full, addresses your question

I wonder how much information the GI's get about the fatality numbers?