Dear Senator Lugar:
Congratulations on your re-election to a record sixth term. I'm old enough to remember when Hoosier Senators never got three terms, much less six.
I read with some satisfaction an AP article in The Indianapolis Star "Lugar Urges Bush to Consult Congress," after your appearance today on "Fox News Sunday." I was struck, as I often am, by the subtlety of your message to the President. You speak the language of diplomacy where a hint, properly taken, can reveal much more.
I have no hopes that the President will heed your advice. He appears to be a man who has to be hit over the head with a metaphorical blunt instrument. But you have made your counsel known, and as a Hoosier I appreciate your effort.
I am even more pleased to see in that same article that you publicly doubt the wisdom of the President's proposed "surge" or escalation of the war in Iraq. It seems plain that an escalation will only result in the death of more American troops and will not change the outcome. Please, Senator, press your point more fully at every opportunity.
I live in rural Newton County, a place with traditional patriotic values and few jobs. It pains me to see unquestioning flag-waving when our young people join the military in the midst of a disastrous war. We must never allow them to become cannon fodder for a deluded, suicidal policy. Our children's lives are in this President's hands, and by extension, in yours.
I hope you have seen the analysis in The New York Times, published Monday, January 1, 2007 on the execution of Saddam. The hardest-hitting observation is this:
the Shiite-led government that assumed power in the American effort here is running the state under an undisguised sectarian banner.
I'm sure you agree that American forces ought not to be stuck in the middle of a Shiite-Sunni bloodbath. There's no winning. There's only death.
The hanging was hasty. Laws governing its timing were bypassed, and the guards charged with keeping order in the chamber instead disrupted it, shouting Shiite militia slogans.
I do not mourn the man. I have moral questions about capital punishment, but what's done is done. Saddam is hanged, and now we can all watch it on YouTube. I shudder to think of Americans who actually download it.
But I try to put myself in your shoes, a moderate-conservative Republican staring into the abyss your party's President has created. It puts me in mind of an old Bible verse concerning the shepherds at Christmas: "And they were sore afraid."
This cannot be an easy time for you. It is not an easy time this New Year's Eve for any serious American.
I urge you in the days ahead to move beyond your innate caution, your learned and skillful diplomacy, to oppose this President in his escalation, his warmongering and his delusions. Speak out; insist on an audience. Be bold, Senator; serve your country. Serve our kids in Indiana and Newton County.
Gerald Ford, a Midwestern Republican, is dead after inheriting the dregs of Watergate and Vietnam. The nation gives him his heartfelt, modest due. He told Bob Woodward Iraq was a mistake—a message embargoed till Ford's death, but now revealed at the best possible time.
Please, Senator, bring our troops home immediately. No announced timetables, no grand proclamations, no "new way forward," and no more cow patties out of Washington, D.C. Cut off the funds; send the transport planes to Iraq. Bring our troops home now.
This President, sad to say, is tragically incompetent. He missed the most basic lesson of Vietnam: a war unpopular in America results in regime change not in the place where we targeted it, but right here at home. The Bush government is destined to fall, just like Nixon's. Will you be part of the solution or part of the problem?
It is not flattery—indeed you face a grave responsibility—to say that the whole world is watching Dick Lugar. The day you and a few other elder statesmen (Warner, Hagel) say it's over, it will be. That's your great strength, but now I implore you to use it.
Three thousand American soldiers are dead in a Shiite orgy of revenge against Saddam while Osama bin Laden sleeps peacefully in Pakistan. Please, Senator, exert yourself as you once did against Marcos in the Philippines and again in the Lugar-Nunn disarmament of Russian nukes. This President does not understand your subtle diplomacy. The only choice left is beating him over the head with a stick.
Nixon resigned when Hugh Scott and Barry Goldwater went to the White House and said, "It's time to go. You no longer have the votes. We'll vote ourselves to convict you. It's time to go."
They were patriots, and you face the same decision they did. They did not shirk from their duty. Nor did Gerald Ford, nor should you.
Please, Senator, do not less us down. Bring our troops home so we can mourn.