Is This Worth Another $200 Billion? And Staying in Iraq?
Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 11:15:48 AM PDT
I want all Senators and Representatives to read this, then look me in the eye and say that we should give Bush another $200 billion and a free pass to stay in Iraq:
Jeff Hubbard fought back tears as he talked about his boy -- a "great, great young man" who was killed last week in Iraq in a helicopter crash. It's the second time he's had to bury a son killed in the Iraq war.
This time, it was made even more tragic. His third son, also a soldier in Iraq, was immediately on scene of last week's helicopter crash and watched as soldiers carried the remains of his brother, 21-year-old Army Cpl. Nathan Hubbard, from the crash site.
From a story on CNN ...
Nathan's flag-draped coffin arrived in Fresno earlier this week. Six members of the U.S. Army Honor Guard carefully carried the casket to a hangar where the Hubbards waited. Nathan was just 30 days away from coming home from the war when he was killed.
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Tragically, the Hubbards have gone through this anguish before.
In 2004 their son, Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Hubbard, was on patrol in Iraq with his best friend and fellow Marine, Jeremiah Baro -- also from Clovis -- when a roadside bomb exploded, killing both.
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On August 22 after returning from a scouting mission south of Kirkuk, Iraq, the Blackhawk helicopter carrying Nathan and 13 other soldiers crashed.
Jason, who served in the same Army platoon, was in a separate helicopter when his brother went down and was ordered to secure the crash site.
When he and his men reached the downed Blackhawk, Jason says he realized it was his brother's unit.
"We also had to remove as many of the men as we could out of that helicopter," Jason remembered. "And I couldn't participate in that. I knew my -- I knew Nathan was in there. I tried several times to kind of gather myself, but I just -- I couldn't."
There is no excuse for any elected official to vote to continue doing this to families, to our nation. There is no excuse for letting anyone say "just a little more money, just a little more time." There is no excuse for trying to show you are "tough on terrorists" by voting to continue this fantasy world.
I am well-read. I try to be sophisticated in my world-view. I realize that the Middle East is important to our national interests. I realize that we can't just turn our back on the region, that we have to stay involved, that we have to reach out to many nations. I realize that you can't move 150,000 troops overnight, not to mention equipment.
But, I'm also a human being, and a parent, and this is MADNESS. To continue on this course, unabated, throwing more money and children's lives at it, sending more bodies over on planes and back in caskets, wrecking our military and bankrupting our nation -- this is insanity. This is the stuff of cynical novels and Hitchcockian movies.
And to VOTE to continue it is not "being collegial," or "supporting the troops," or "working to achieve a compromise." It is weakness, it is cowardice. It is loving votes more than loving your country. It is valuing being a politician over being a human being.
This has to stop. This has to stop NOW. No more money, no more extensions, no more surges or splurges or plans or benchmarks. Every day we stay is another parent burying another child, another man watching his brother's body be pulled from a burning helicopter, another car bomb, another IED, another day in hell.
It's. Time. To. Leave.
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