Yesterday the American Legion declared "war" on dissent against the war in Iraq. I felt I had to reply.
Dear Commander Cadmus,
In the past I have always supported the American Legion and I continue to hold Veterans in the highest regards. These men and women have always served our country with honor and distinction and have kept our country free from invaders from abroad.
Today's soldiers have preformed every task our country has asked of them. They deserve our respect and gratitude. The same can not be said of their commander in chief or his administration. They have lied to us, the American public on the reasons to go to war, on what we could expect when we got there and what our goals in Iraq are.
This is the most secretive administration in the history of our country. Secrecy in government almost always means their are nefarious dealings going on. With even the small fragments of truth that have come out, it is clear, this administration has been lying to us.
The first amendment of the Constitution is the right of free speech, your organization's new resolution seeks to abridge that right. I don't have the quote in front of me but Benjamin Franklin said words to the effect of "those that would give up liberty for security deserve neither".
Your resolution to "make war" on protesters and dissenters is deplorable. I agree that we should not forget the lessons of 9/11. However, Iraq had NOTHING to do with the 9/11 attacks. We might as well have invaded Sweden for the 9/11 attacks, they had nothing to do with them either.
The war in Iraq is based on a series of lies by the current administration with "the facts being fixed around policy" as we learned from the Downing Street minutes. The intelligence used in promoting the illegal invasion of Iraq was cherry picked by people such as John Bolton.
Before the invasion of Iraq, there were no terrorists in Iraq. Our presence there has enabled Al Qaida and it's allies to recruit thousands of disenfranchised young Iraqis and encouraged the flow of terrorists from other countries.
Even with the duplicty of our administration, I don't favor an immediate pullout of Iraq. Even though it appears we have set up yet another Islamic Republic that will be part of Iran's sphere of influence. Now that we have destabilized that country, we need to get serious and accelerate training the Iraqis to defend themselves.
Building fourteen permant military bases in Iraq doesn't signal to me that this administration plans to ever leave Iraq. This leaves it up to the American people to speak truth to power. Samuel Clemmons noted that Patriotism is supporting your country all of the time and your government when they deserve it. Hence, dissent is Patriotic.