Marine's Dad Asks BushCo Some Great Questions!

[mhatrw]

http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061024/OPINION05/610240301/1006/OPINION

MR. PRESIDENT, you've said that the options in Iraq are either cut and run or stay the course. My question is: Why haven't you considered a third option: phasing in troops from Jordan and Egypt as peacekeepers - troops who are Arabic-speaking Muslims, troops who won't provoke Islamic jihadists or help fuel the insurgency, as our intelligence agencies report that American troops have done since our invasion and occupation of Iraq?

If it is so important to have troops there to keep the peace and fight the insurgency, why haven't you asked King Abdullah II of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt to contribute peacekeeping forces? Why not gradually replace Americans with Arabic-speaking Muslim peacekeepers? Why not take away the single greatest provocation that allows radical Muslims to portray this as a holy war, of Christians against Muslims? Of outsiders against Arabs? Why allow the presence of Western, mostly Christian occupiers to inspire the insurgency and provide a fertile breeding ground for Islamic terrorists?

MR. PRESIDENT, since you've admitted that there is no connection between the 9/11 attacks and Iraq, and since we've found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, you have said that American troops are there to bring democracy to the Iraqi people. Democracy means the opportunity to vote on one's future. Will you agree to allow the Iraqi people to go to the polls and vote whether they want American troops to stay or leave by a specific date? Why not put our actions where our rhetoric is and trust the Iraqi people to vote? If they vote for us to leave, then they can fight for their own freedom the same way we did in 1776. And they will value it more if it is their own blood, sweat and tears that wins their freedom, rather than having it handed to them by American troops whose invasion and occupation has directly or indirectly caused the deaths of tens of thousands of their countrymen.

MR. PRESIDENT, you, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld have recently compared the occupation of Iraq to the moral equivalent of the World War II fight against the Nazis. If this truly is the equivalent of World War II, if America's safety and future are really being determined by the outcome of the battle for the streets of Baghdad, then when can we expect your daughters, Jenna and Barbara, now 24, to sign up and fight the way Franklin D. Roosevelt's four sons - James, Elliot, John and FDR Jr. - did during World War II?

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[Cha]

1. Because they're not

smart enough to consider a 3rd option.

[Generic Other]

2. It's not bad idea

I can't imagine Jordan or Egypt wanting to do it though...

[porphyrian]

3. Thank you! I've been wondering the same things. - n/t

[babylonsister]

4. The author has a huge stake in this in his son. It's great to read. Now,

if only he'd get some straight answers.

[genie_weenie]

5. Come on this will be smirked of by the Glorious Ruler

with interspersions of the wrinkled forehead (to denote W is paying attention) and strong declarative statements about Freedom, 9/11, stay the course, etc.

Or I should write "would be" if Bush would actually ever address these issues.

[neuvocat]

6. Short answers:

Answer #1: Because that would mean the other countries get a bigger share of the Iraqi oil than we want them to.

Answer #2: Bush doesn't like it when votes go against him here, let alone in another country he's trying to manipulate and take its resources from.

Answer #3: Bush won't do anything at all like his predacessors if they were Democrats.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

7. UN Peacekeepers led by Arab Nations

Of course there are at least two reasons it won't happen.

First of all, it makes sense.

Secondly, it involves the Neo-con man pigs having to admit they were completely and totally wrong, and I don't expect that to happen.

[democrank]

8. Excellent questions.

Way over Junior`s head, but excellent.

[Canuckistanian]

9. GREAT questions

The last one is the best:

If you can't persuade your own flesh and blood, those who share your genes and your heritage, whose values you have shaped, to risk themselves by enlisting or even to sign up as civilian truck drivers in Iraq, then how can you tell the American people that this is the equivalent of World War II, a time when virtually every able-bodied American, including your own father, served in the war effort?

[DemReadingDU]

10. I'd like to see Bush answer those questions!

K&R