Letter to the Editor: are you willing?

By Sun Advocate

Editor:
I read with interest a letter submitted a few weeks ago to the Sun Advocate. I have misplaced the paper, and unfortunately do not remember the author’s name. I believe he was upset with people that he labeled “unable to realize we were engaged in a war over terrorism”; that all Democrats were ‘evil-doers’, just short of demon spawn; and that it was the Clinton administrations’ fault for the occurrence of the 9-11-01 tragedy.
I am not a Democrat, nor am I a Republican, despite all of my family’s best efforts. For years it was easy for me to be like the majority of other Utahns, and simply follow the herd mentality found at several different Christian denominations in the state. You simply show up to church for services on Sunday to compare clothing and be told how to vote from the pulpit.
But having the Supreme Court declare George W. Bush as president in 2000, when he had won neither the popular or electoral majority, just seemed highly un-American to me. So I became an Independent.
If not for the actions perpetrated against America on Sept. 11, 2001, Bush probably could have served as a mediocre president, as so many of them do, and gone unnoticed into history. Yes, the Clinton administration had tried to eliminate Osama bin Laden and been unsuccessful. Their security division gave Condi Rice a report on bin Laden, and impressed upon her that he was determined to strike in America. As Ms. Rice testified herself to the 9-11 Committee, the report was titled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike America”. When questioned why the Bush administration did no follow up on the report, she gave some excuse that they didn’t think it that important.
After the tragedy, when President Bush said he wanted Osama, dead or alive, I thought he meant it. Now five and a half years later, he states he simply doesn’t think about him anymore. Well, of course not. He’s rather busy with another ‘evil-doer’, Saddam, and the war he picked against him.
Let me be clear. Saddam Hussein and Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with the 9-11 disaster. However, I supported the invasion of Iraq because I believed Bush’s accusations of Iraq containing weapons of mass destruction. I actually believed him and it breaks my heart. There are no WMD’s, as we now know. We are into this war for approximately 400 billion dollars, with no end in sight. When Bush took office our national debt was nonexistent. We had a surplus, following eight years of a Democratic administration.
But of even more cost to the American people, are the over 2,300 American lives lost, with over 16,020 wounded. And neither of these figures accounts for those who return with psychological problems, nor the loss of America’s moral standing in the world.
I remember that the author of the letter I read was angry because he thought people didn’t get that we are in a war. Oh, we know we’re in a war all right. But perhaps it would be clearer if this administration would lift it’s ban on the media and let pictures be taken of the military caskets boarding planes for home, covered by the flag of the country for whom they gave the last full measure. But then everyone would see the high cost of this war, and the ‘herd mentality’ might weaken. That is the one cost of this war that the Bush Administration cannot afford. I am hoping that the upcoming mid-term election will go in favor of the Democrats. I want this president impeached, and let history decide if his lies, and the American lives they have cost, are equal in censure to the lies of a president who lied concerning adultery.
I suppose the real $64,000 question I have for the author and all others who still insist on following Bush blindly is….. Are you willing to put the lives of your children and/or grandchildren in the hands of these men whose dishonesty and arrogance know no bounds?