Thursday, March 1, 2007

"Mr. Cheney, you and the President are the ones aiding the enemy"

Bluff Country Newspaper Group (MN)

For those of you who know me personally, you know I have been against the war in Iraq since the day we entered. Most of the time I keep my mouth shut about it, but enough is enough.

Our vice president is running off at the mouth again how Democrats are aiding the enemy and being unpatriotic by questioning the latest drivel coming out of his and President Bush's mouth - the value of the troop surge.

As a person too young to remember Vietnam, I had prayed that when we started down this misguided road that we would not end up in another unwinnable war.

Unfortunately, it seems that our government didn't learn anything from that conflict and thus we are repeating history:

o fighting in a country where we don't know the language;

o fighting for an ideal that is not embraced by the majority of the population with the influence and money to make peace happen;

o fighting an invisible enemy who is there one minute and gone the next into a house or neighborhood where he is protected and we are hated;

o fighting a culture that is as old as Christianity, that has been around before Jesus was born and that won't be changed in one year, 10 years or probably a 100 years.

I could go on but you get my point. I must say that society learned a lot from the Vietnam War. They learned that you could hate the war and the politics but love and support the soldiers who fight in it.

I respect every soldier who is out there doing his or her job, day after day, despite the hopelessness of his or her actions. I wish the soldiers were putting their lives on the line for something that really mattered.

Furthermore, lets talk about patriotism. Merriam-Webster defines it as "love for or devotion to one's country." That doesn't say anything about supporting one's president.

Our government should be ashamed of itself and make Halliburton repay the billions of dollars it has embezzled and misappropriated from the taxpayers and American government for projects never completed or mismanaged in Iraq.

Those funds should be turned over to the Veterans Administration to care for the thousands of new veterans already being failed by an overwhelmed and under-funded system.

How can this administration so willingly continue to put soldiers in harm's way and yet not pay for the very infrastructure that will be with them until the day they die?

Listening to some of the reports coming out of our major media outlets this weekend, made me realize our country should be ashamed at how we are letting these brave men and women down.

Shame on our government for allowing veterans at Walter Reed to lay in rat and mold infested facilities.

We have not even scratched the surface for the amount of money that will be needed to sustain these patriotic and deserving individuals for the balance of their lifetime.

Mr. Cheney, you are the one aiding the enemy, by stripping our economy, robbing our tax monies and disgracing our soldiers.

That young lady covered it pretty well, I think.

No comments: