Letter of the Day: Details

The real guilty parties of the tragedy in Haditha are President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. In February 2003, when Gen. Eric Ken Shinseki said that the occupation of Iraq would require several hundred thousand troops, they ridiculed him and scoffed at the idea that the reconstruction would cost more than $95 billion. The result: an inadequate force of brave volunteers operating under extreme stress resulting in tragedies such as Haditha.

We may disagree with the trumped up “reasons” for going to war and Congress bears a full burden of guilt.

However, the primary guilt is Bush’s for the deaths of our brave armed forces and so many innocent civilians, the abuses of Abu Ghraib and Guantanomo.

In 2006 we must elect a congress which will not be a doormat for Bush and Cheney, and will oppose an invasion of Iran. We need a Middle East strategy that removes from the region threatened use of nuclear weapons from the countries which possess them: the U.S., Israel, Pakistan and India. We need a strategy that doesn’t threaten regime change because we don’t approve of the choices the people have made.

The arrest of terrorist plotters in Canada establishes that the terrorist threat is real and we must be vigilant both at home and abroad in our defense of this threat.

Iraq and Iran clearly support the Palestinian people who suffer under the oppressive Israeli occupation but I am aware of no published evidence that they supported the Al Quaeda inspired terrorists.

Charles J. Theisen, Jr., Ph.D., Cdr USN (Retired)/Bonita Springs