In response to:
this articleMr. Frank Gaffney, Jr.
c/o Washington Times
Sir:
I just finished reading your article of February 20, 2007, “Treacherous Agitation”, and I must say I was surprised to find that we are actually in agreement in many areas.
As an American citizen, I am also concerned about the traitors in our midst, the “agitators”, those who seek to set our nation on a destructive course.
The only real difference between your views and mine is the people we each believe to be guilty of those crimes against our democracy.
I would start with those who lied us into the war in Iraq in the first place, those who ‘tweaked’ the intelligence to fit a pre-determined course of action, those who deliberately ignored well-founded and well-investigated information that was contrary to their agenda, and simply omitted those facts when presenting their case for war.
The behavior of those involved in the above wrongdoing should be investigated fully, in view of the results of their actions: a war that has resulted in the loss of thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, has caused greater instability in the Middle East, and the loss of respect for our country around the world.
As a patriotic American, I have no doubt you would agree that such people should be held to account.
In addition, I would heartily support investigations into those within our government who allocated the billions of dollars to war profiteers, and those who failed to exercise any oversight of such expenditures. At the same time our troops were sent into combat without body armor and vehicle armor, these corporations were already raking in mind-boggling profits. That seems very unAmerican to me, Frank – how about you?
I agree with you that our enemies have been emboldened, and our troops demeaned and demoralized. But again I would disagree with your assessment as to who is responsible. While I have never served in the military, common sense would dictate that having my pay, pension and benefits gutted while I was in combat would be greatly demoralizing – especially when the very politicians who voted for those cuts wave the “We Support the Troops” banner at every opportunity. As a soldier on my second, third, or fourth tour of duty without respite, I would tend to think that if these are the people who are “supporting” me, I’m really in trouble.
As for emboldening the enemy, I can’t imagine, were I an “enemy”, a better reason to be optimistic than hearing a president talking about ‘staying the course’ long after that ‘course’ was proven to be disastrous. I would also be emboldened to action by seeing innocent women and children being killed and maimed on a daily basis, and innocent men being imprisoned and tortured, while the administration responsible for such behavior held themselves out as 'good Christians' and were left free to do so. I would be emboldened by hearing phrases like “the insurgency being in its last throes” being fed to the American public, when all evidence was totally to the contrary.
I would be emboldened by the fact that the powers-that-be in the United States were still giving credence to the advice of those who had predicted such ridiculous notions as being “greeted with sweets and flowers”, or “this war will pay for itself”, or “within a year, the Iraqis will name a square in Baghdad after their liberator, George W. Bush.”
Again we agree on the concept of ‘agitators’; again we disagree on who they are, and their motives. While I am cognizant of the fact that our traditional American rights and freedoms have been seriously eroded under the present administration, the last time I checked, we were still a democracy; majority rule, by the People and for the People.
So if the majority of the People want out of this war, does it not follow that the pro-war minority are the ‘agitators’, intent on thwarting the will of the citizenry? If the president and his dwindling supporters have proven themselves, at every turn, to be incompetent, is it not unpatriotic ‘agitation’ to insist he be given a free hand to cause even more harm, more disaster, more loss of life?
You speak about ‘code words’ for defeat, and we have yet to hear a straight answer when this administration is asked for a definition of ‘victory’ – or is ‘victory’ just another code word for deferring defeat to the next president's watch, rather than having it occur during the tenure of George W. Bush?
I, for one, don’t find it the least bit ironic – as you do – that those critical of Bush for not having a plan for post-invasion Iraq are quiet about what will happen if we retreat from this unwinnable debacle. A true leader doesn’t entangle his country and its military in a quagmire without such a plan. As Colin Powell pointed out at the beginning of this fiasco, “You break it, you’ve bought it.” And now the president, having taken a sledgehammer to the pottery, seems to think that others – the very people whose advice he eschewed in the first place – should paste the shattered shards back together.
Those who have offered alternatives have been far from quiet, sir; they have simply been ignored, or drowned out by those who insist that we have but one more corner to turn in Iraq, and total victory will be ours – a prediction as truthful as, let’s say, attributing a statement to Abraham Lincoln that he never uttered.
That’s not irony, sir; that’s just an honest assessment of the state of affairs. And in the face of all of it, this president still sees fit to dismiss any advice from anyone and continues, undeterred, on his own course of disastrous action.
On closing, I would be remiss if I did not address your question: “Will it take some further, even more catastrophic attack here at home … to silence their defeatism and reunify the country behind a necessary program for victory?”
Well, good heavens, let’s hope there won’t be another ‘catastrophic attack’ here at home. We all know how the president ignored warnings about 9/11 – and if another attack was also forewarned, we can probably expect the same inattentiveness. After the fact, I suppose we’d wind up in another unwinnable war against a country that had nothing to do with it in the first place.
That’s the precedent that’s been set, in case you haven’t noticed – and it’s all worked out really well, don’t you think?
Yours truly,
Nancy Greggs
Unamused American Citizen
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