+++++

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
BEAVER COUNTY TIMES

Don’t dismiss casualty count

Published: Thursday, March 27, 2008 8:22 AM EDT

Some radio talk hosts of the right wing of the Republican Party have been saying the loss of soldiers in Iraq is insignificant in comparison to the approximate 500,000 killed in the Civil War (1861-1865) or the approximate 50,000 killed in automobile accidents in our country every year.

Are 4,000 soldiers killed in the Iraq War insignificant in a war that was started by the Bush administration by deceiving falsehoods? Ask the relatives of those soldiers killed in this terrible war.

Election of John McCain as president and commander-in-chief of our armed forces will mean the continuance of the Iraq War with no end in sight.

John M. Tomaszewski

Hopewell Township

-----------------

REPLIES TO JOHN:

DJ wrote on Mar 27, 2008 10:03 AM:

" John, 4000 "soldiers" have not been killed in this war!!! 3260 military personnel have been killed in action (KIA). 4000 is the number of personnel who have died who have been assigned duties in the area of responsible (AOR) which is considerably larger than Iraq. This includes personnel who died in accidents, who were murdered by fellow personnel, who died from preexisting medical conditions, etc. I just love how the liberal media and all of the Bush haters rant and rave about 4000 dead when it isn't true. But then again what does the truth and liberalism have to do with each other. Not much! As a retired military member who served during both Iraq wars and who goes to Walter Reed and Bethesda often (will be there on Sat) I have seen first hand the horrors of this conflict. "

+++++

Carl Davidson wrote on Mar 27, 2008 11:15 AM:

" You're on target, John.

My view on our best shot? Obama in the primary, anybody but McCain in the general, and Bring ALL the Troops home now.

And just like with the contempt they show on the casualty numbers, take all the stuff they're dumping on Obama with a few grains of salt. I know it's a stretch for some, but take a deeper look at this young man, beyond the talk radio and Fox snippets and sound bites. "

+++++

Duke wrote on Mar 27, 2008 12:07 PM:

" I can't see how choosing the military as a career and witnessing the horrors of war compares to the horror of burying your only son or daughter due to the poor judgement of an incompetent leader. "

+++++

RL wrote on Mar 27, 2008 2:21 PM:

" DJ I am one of your so called Bush haters and it has nothing to do with the liberal media. It has to do with common sense. The people that trained for and are responsible for 9/11 are in Afghanistan. The fact that we did not surge and put 150,000 troops into Afghanistan and really defeat the Taliban and capture Bin Laden before we even considered going after Sadaam and his WMD makes me a Bush hater. Six and a half years after 9/11 Bin Laden is still out there and the Taliban are making a come back. The USSR during the Cold War had WMD and we never attacked them so I will never believe that Sadaam and his WMD were a bigger threat that the USSR. "

+++++

W Horter wrote on Mar 27, 2008 3:39 PM:

" Yes, an excellant letter. How someone can split hairs over this body count is beyond my comprehension though. 30,000 more have been wounded, tens of thousands of Iraqi people are dead, can you tell me why DJ ? Why are we there? Iraq was no threat to this country, had nothing to do with 9/11, and Blix and the Inspectors were on scene. As for "truth", it wasn't the left who made up the story about WMds. "

+++++

Stumpy wrote on Mar 27, 2008 3:59 PM:

" Carl, No one who is elected to the presidency this election will end the war on terror. That simple.

Duke, I know what you mean. I can't imagine how the soldiers parents on the USS Cole felt when they had to bury their sons and daughters because of Clinton's incompetence... "

NEXT A LETTER WITH A STORY ON VIETNAM AND IRAQ:

A senseless war like Vietnam
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: Thursday, March 27, 2008 8:22 AM EDT
I recently went shopping for a new coat for my 92-year-old mother. I had a list in my head of the specifications that the coat must possess in order to be given her seal of approval.

I finally found the perfect coat in the right size and color. The coat was a brand name that is well known for its quality products.

I left the tags on until I took the coat to her house so that she could try it on and make sure it passed her high standards. It did. I then removed the tags and was quite amazed to see that the coat was “Made in Vietnam”

On Monday, I read a headline in The Times: “4,000 DEAD.” In Vietnam, 47,424 soldiers were killed. I remember visiting the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., and feeling an enormous sense of sadness upon realizing the many lives that were cut short because of a war that made no sense.

We didn’t win that war; we left. There was chaos when the United States pulled out of Vietnam, but the country survived and that part of our earth and its people put their own world back together again.

Today, we fight another senseless war in Iraq. Four thousand dead — and how many more must die before we realize we can’t win this war either?

Our citizens argue with each other about the future of Iraq: we can’t just pull out; we can’t lose this war; we can’t leave Iraq’s citizens to fend for themselves.

The war will drag on; time will slowly pass by; many more lives will be lost, and we will build another monument to honor their lives.

In the future, another citizen of the United States will go shopping to find another perfect garment and will be surprised to read the label “Made in Iraq.”

Joan Verner

Chippewa Township

----------

Replies to Joan:

Carl Davidson wrote on Mar 27, 2008 11:08 AM:

" Excellent letter, Joan, I'll pass it on, with the hopes that it will spur people to activism so this war's 'dragging on' is cut short. "

FINALLY, AS A RESULT OF ALL THIS DEBATE OVER A YEAR, THE TIMES WEIGHS IN WITH AN EDITORAL ON THE 5TH ANIVERSARY:

Bitter legacy : The truth about Bush’s failure in Iraq is that there is no good way out for the U.S.
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 7:20 AM EDT
Five years, almost 4,000 deaths, tens of thousands wounded and maimed — and no end in sight. Such is the mess that President Bush created when he, Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, neo-cons and other chicken hawks pushed our country into a war that did not need to be fought.

There’s no point in going into the lies, half-truths, pie-eyed optimism and failed promises the administration and its allies used to gin up war with Iraq. There’s no reason to rehash how they refused to plan adequately for the occupation of Iraq or anticipate the impact that the invasion would have on Iraqi society. This administration’s failings have been too well documented to waste any more time on them.

Of course, the administration and its defenders refuse to own up to many of their mistakes, and they certainly are never going to admit that they were wrong in toppling Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein instead of staying focused on rooting out al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq destabilized a fractured society and undermined what little stability there was. The administration’s total bungling of the situation has led to hundreds of innocent Iraqis being killed, wounded and maimed.

The U.S. military also is paying a terrible price for their hubris. A first-class military has been and is being misused and abused by this administration. Its personnel and materiel are being ground down in what amounts to a war of attrition that cannot be won.

To make the punishment being inflicted on the military even more devastating, only a very small percentage of the American people are making the ultimate sacrifice. As a result, the war and its consequences are not remotely related to most Americans’ daily lives. For far too many Americans, it is someone else’s son or daughter who has been killed, wounded and maimed. It is someone else’s husband or wife whose family life has been disrupted by repeated combat tours. It is some other father or mother whose life has been shattered by the death of a child.

Five years on, the United States is weaker economically, militarily and diplomatically than it was prior to the invasion. It has fewer friends and more enemies, fewer resources and more debt, fewer options and more problems, fewer allies and more creditors.

The bleakness has no end because the United States has no options. It can neither stay in Iraq nor withdraw from Iraq.

If it stays, Iraq will continue to be a budgetary and military drain on the nation.

The presence of U.S. military personnel in large numbers also will be a recruiting tool for Muslim extremists.

But if the United States does withdraw, Iraq will collapse into a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites and Arabs and Kurds — with Iranian Shiites and Sunni extremists from outside Iraq as potential participants.

Five years on, there is no end in sight. This is what Bush hath wrought. It will be his bitter legacy.

SOME RESPONSES:

Carl Davidson wrote on Mar 19, 2008 9:07 AM:

" This is a very good perspective --down-to-earth, realistic but calling our political leaders onto the carpet.

I'd only differ with the flat way you pose the dilemma at the end. The bloodbath and civil war scenario isn't fact, but a probable hypothesis. There's another one that's probable also. When the US withdraws, Iraqi nationalism can unite some Shia and Sunni to turn on the 'other foreigners', al-Quaeda's people, responsible for some of the worse sectarian violence, and run them out. But as long as we're there, we're the 'greater danger' preventing such a thing. The regime in Iraq is likely to be pro-Iran in any case, but that reveals how flawed the policy was.

I don't know which is more probable, and neither does anyone else.

But this editorial is a good service to your readers on this unfortunate anniversary of Bush's disaster. "

+++++

sick of all the Bish blaming wrote on Mar 19, 2008 2:33 PM:

" Why do Americans keep blaming Bush for the war in Iraq? This was not "his" war. Our country has not been attacked on our own soil since Pearl Harbor. He had no choice but to go after Al-Quida. Most people were in agreement then....but, between our left wing media, and our liberal politicians...they have managed to wage their own war in this country against our president, concerning the war. Bush never told us that this fight would be quick or easy. We are fighting something we have never had to fight before. Radical Islam has threatened that they would take the USA over, and with the enormous amount of people in this country embracing the muslim, Barack Hussein Obama...they are making pretty good progress. Wake up America....Do you really want to dishonor our country, and all those who have given their lives for our freedoms by putting a "Hussein" in our Whitehouse?....that would be insane!Every American needs to think and educate themselves about casting a vote for Obama....the man won't even say the pledge to our American flag....what should that tell you? Pray for our president...not cut him down. "

+++++

Carl Davidson wrote on Mar 19, 2008 5:34 PM:

" Read the editorial carefully, 'Sick of.'

The perpetrators of 9/11, al-Quaeda and crew, were not in Iraq. They were in Afghanistan, quite a distance away. And whatever you say about Saddam's Iraq, it wasn't into 'Radical Islam,' but was secular then.

Unless you think it was OK just to invade any old Arab country after 9/11, whether or not they had anything to do with it.

Bush didn't go where the terrorists were, he went where the oil was. And now they FOLLOWED us there.

Time to bring all our troops home, in fact, way past time.

And what about the middle name 'Hussein', which is as common and similar to St Joseph in large parts of the world, that disqualifies someone to run for president? What's next? Antonio? Rado? Rodney? Jose? Jessica?

Some of the things said to 'diss' Obama would make the Rev. Wright blush "

+++++

jerry--a patriot wrote on Mar 20, 2008 6:54 PM:

" Your thoughts are succinct and to the point. A needless war. This administration took their "eye off of the prize", so to speak. The job in Afganistan was never finished, Bin Laden is still at large and yet Bush, Cheney, et al have the hubris to extoll the members of NATO to do more in their war.
The comments from others who claim you "haave no back bone" are as ludicrous as those of Rush and his lemmings, aka Dittoheads who cannot think for themselves but rely on the neo-cons to spout off their venom toward those who have the gall to oppose an unjust war which has done nothing but disable this county "

+++++

Frank wrote on Mar 22, 2008 11:44 AM:

" Dear "Sick of blaming Bush", You are so confused I feel sorry for you. Irac had no part in 911. I was drafted during the Vietnam conflict. Many of my friends served this country and did their duty over there. In my opinion they died for nothing, all 58,000. We had hoped that we would never again sacrifice our youg people for nothing. How wrong we were. "

+++++

Average White Person wrote on Mar 22, 2008 10:33 PM:

" Let history record Barack Hussein Obama's military blunders.

AND SO ON....