The Summers are Hot in Hell
I am embarrassed that I have not written about this sooner.
American soldiers and Marines are bleeding and dying every single day to establish and maintain a relatively secure environment in which the Iraqi Parliament can build a political agreement to end their country's internal conflict.
Meanwhile, this same Iraqi government is, literally, on vacation while their country is being torn apart and their citizens murdered by the thousands.
This is one of the most shameful and unacceptable acts by a group of individuals that I have ever seen.
If I had the ear of the President of the United States, I would seriously consider advising him to tell our military units responsible for protecting these Iraqi leaders to stand down until these people get back to work.
Many would argue that is a rash move. Perhaps it is.
At an absolute minimum, our "leaders" – the President, Senators, Congressmen – should be shaming these legislators every time they come within 10 yards of a reporter or TV camera.
I am not talking about vile, tactless insults or provocative and inflammatory rhetoric that can be easily dismissed. I am just advocating a simple, factual and daily statement:
Today, 14 of America’s finest young citizens died in Iraq.
Their mission was to enable a political solution to be reached that could save an entire nation.
The nation these noble young Americans died to save was not even their own.
The people they died to protect, the only ones that can win this war and justify the death of almost 4,000 Americans, are on vacation.
This vacation should end immediately.
If any one is saying this forcefully and repeatedly, I have missed it. And I literally spend 2 to 3 hours reading the news every single day.
I did notice that Vice President Dick Cheney was asked for his thoughts on the Iraqi Parliament's vacation on Larry King Live earlier this month. His entire response:
"It's better than taking two months off, which was their original plan."
I am not even going to comment on the appropriateness or inappropriateness of this response.
It speaks for itself.
Tony Snow, the President’s press secretary, has informed us (see the above link) that it is 130 degrees in Baghdad in the summer.
Of course it is.
Hell is a hot place.
And that is exactly where our troops are serving and the Iraqi people are fighting to survive. The only people that can justify the former and end the latter are these vacationing Iraqi politicians.
We – you and me – should demand that they do so by any means we have available - or at least get back to trying.
With that in mind, this is another good chance to write a quick email to your Representative or Senator (links on the left of the page).
Please write a one line email asking them to speak forcefully and daily for an end to this insult to our servicemen and women and to the Iraqi people.
It is the least we can do in a war in which so few have been asked to do so much.
6 comments:
Wait. You want the President to demand that someone else end a vacation? I think you had better call 911, because I'm about to die laughing. George Bush asking someone to end a vacation is like Cheech and Chong asking someone not to smoke pot.
I don't hear the Democrats asking either.
And this issue is too important to serve merely as another stick to use against Bush. That may be satisfying to some, but the best use of words and air time is the non-political statement I am advocating.
I know that the Dems have been asking Bush to bring troops home, in vain, for months. If they are as serious about protecting our soldiers welfare as they are scoring political points, they will work equally as hard to make sure the troops lives aren't wasted while they are there.
No doubt, George Bush deserves more blame than any other American politician because he has the most power.
But any who are silent on this issue are also failing in their duty.
Congressional Democrats took a lot of crap the last time they took Mideast policy into their own hands. Besides, I don't really see the Iraqi parliament ending their vacation early because a bunch of American legislators whined about it. They know, as we all know, that people, military and civilian, are dying on all sides. And just like our own President, they obviously don't care.
Also, President Bush's friends are trying to undermine the Iraqi government.
There's little difference between what they are doing and what Carl Levin (D -Michigan) is doing when he publicly calls for the Iraqi Parliament to remove al-Maliki.
I'll admit though, something feels unsettling about an American lobbying group working for such an end.
But as long as this man's (al_Maliki)lack of leadership is directly resulting in American military and Iraqi civilian deaths (by not calling for work to continue), I have a hard time mounting an effective argument against their goal.
I am not familar with their tactics though and that is a very relevant consideration...
The actions of the lobbying group do not unto themselves bother me. It's the group's connection to the President, which makes me question his sincerity in supporting the Iraqi PM (not that I don't already question the sincerity of every last thing he says).
My guess is that the President has supported the man in the past, and because the President is never wrong and never changes his mind and stays the course, he must continue to support him, at least publicly, until the end of time. Al-Maliki could shoot an infant in the head while urinating on a Torah, and the President would say that he was behind him all the way.
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