"In my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency...I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself."
Harry Taylor to President George W. Bush at a Town Hall Meeting in Charlotte, NC, April 2006
I abhor war.
Like millions of others, I knew from the beginning that preemptively striking Iraq would be a disaster. I hate the devastation of war; death, destruction, and loss of humanity which affects all sides of the conflict. At one point prior to the invasion of Iraq, I contemplated walking from my home in Charlotte, NC to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in an attempt to dissuade George Bush from invading Iraq, hoping to attract press and other citizens along the way. I never made that trip, but I did have a chance to challenge the President when he came to Charlotte.
My encounter with George Bush did have a profound impact....It was a political awakening for me: I saw the effect that one lone citizen can have by participating in our democracy.
We can’t go back and change the past. The US invaded Iraq based on falsehoods and lies propelled by fear, with no planning and no contingency. We’ve incurred enormous losses in terms of life, international good will, and extraordinary financial resources, and have now been bogged down in Iraq for 5 years. The only question now is what do we do about it?
Cost of War
In human lives and suffering the costs are enormous and heartbreaking.
As I write this, 3,990 US soldiers have lost their lives in the Iraq conflict; this does not include those who die from Iraq related suicide and injuries.
Estimates suggest that a million Iraqi’s have been killed in this conflict; as I write this 8 US Soldiers lost their lives today; 68 Iraqis were reported killed in twin Baghdad bombings last week. One in five Iraqis has been displaced.
The most frequently cited figure is the 29,320 soldiers wounded in action in Iraq as of Thursday. But there have been 31,325 others treated for non-combat injuries and illness as of March 1. The Pentagon keeps two sets of books," said Linda Bilmes, a professor at Harvard and an expert on budgeting and public finance whose newly published book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, was co-authored with Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.
Their book goes on to say:
Veterans Affairs predicts it will treat 330,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009..
Dr. Gerald Cross, a VA official, said during this week's hearings that 120,000 vets from Iraq and Afghanistan using VA care have potential mental health problems, and that nearly 68,000 have potential post-traumatic stress disorder.
In April 2007, I wrote a letter titled End U.S. Misadventure in Iraq to my opponent, Rep. Sue Myrick, which contained this passage:
I am enclosing the cover of the March 5th Newsweek. The 21-year-old soldier is Marissa Strock. A quick look will reveal that she is missing both legs from just below the knees. They were amputated after she sustained multiple injuries when the Humvee in which she was riding rolled over an explosive device in Iraq. For awhile, Marissa may be honored as a wounded soldier, but the applause will fade as the reality of her life takes shape - a life of perpetual discomfort, challenge and awkwardness. Can you imagine what it takes for her to manage the simple tasks of daily living? How does she move about in the shower? Did you know that the loss of so much body surface has impaired her body's thermostat - that her built-in cooling system will never again function properly?
This is but one soldier’s difficult struggle. The amount of pain and suffering wrought by George Bush’s war is overwhelming. Additionally, military family members, parents, husbands, wives, children struggle through the multiple deployments of their loved ones in the military while facing increasingly devastating effects as the number of deployments grow.
In US treasure the cost is enormous and outrageous.
Recently Linda Bilmes, Harvard professor and budgeting and public finance expert published "The Three Trillion Dollar War" with Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.
Said Blimes in a recent NPR interview:
Americans will spend decades treating the physical and psychological wounds of Iraq veterans, and when the economic consequences of the invasion are taken into account, the costs are staggering.
Staggering, as in $3 trillion dollars:
From the unhealthy brew of emergency funding, multiple sets of books, and chronic underestimates of the resources required to prosecute the war, we have attempted to identify how much we have been spending - and how much we will, in the end, likely have to spend. The figure we arrive at is more than $3 trillion. Our calculations are based on conservative assumptions. A $3 trillion figure for the total cost strikes us as judicious, and probably errs on the low side. Needless to say, this number represents the cost only to the United States. It does not reflect the enormous cost to the rest of the world, or to Iraq.
With 3 trillion dollars, we could have provided healthcare to all Americans, shored up Social Security and Medicare for decades, invested for the US to become a world leader in renewable energies, and been well on our way to energy independence.
Bob Herbert weighs in:
The money spent on the war each day is enough to enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start for a year, or make a year of college affordable for 160,000 low-income students through Pell Grants
US Military is being stretched to the point of breaking.
Repeated Iraq deployments raise mental health risks for soldiers
WASHINGTON -- More than a quarter of higher-ranking enlisted soldiers showed signs of mental health problems after being sent to war zones for the third or fourth time, a sharp increase over those on their first or second deployments, according to a military study issued Thursday.
Our volunteer military is losing officers, and recruiters have loosened the rules to try and meet their quotas. This Iraq occupation is devastating troop and equipment readiness, and stretching our military to the breaking point as evidenced by this story written over a year ago!
Report: U.S. Military Readiness Worsens
Quick Response To Possible Third Crisis Unlikely Because Of Strains From Iraq And Afghanistan Wars (AP) Strained by the demands of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a significant risk that the U.S. military won't be able to quickly and fully respond to yet another crisis, according to a new report to Congress.
After exploring the costs of the Iraq war; let’s look at the other side of the equation:
What benefits have we gained? President Bush and his Republican enablers like Rep. Sue Myrick constantly remind us that we should be afraid, and in order to stay safe we must remain in Iraq forever!
Are we safer?
From recent NIE’s (National Intelligence Estimates):
2006
The report "says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse," said one American intelligence official.
2007
Al Qaeda is gaining in strength from its refuge in Pakistan and is steadily improving its ability to recruit, train and position operatives capable of carrying out attacks inside the United States, the director of national intelligence told a Senate panel on Tuesday.
Are we winning?
The White House is seeking to keep the 2008 Iraq NIE secret in this
election year
The document, scheduled to be delivered to Congress before testimony in early April by Army General David H. Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, and US Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, is an update of a last summer's report, predicting an increasingly precarious political situation in the war-shattered country.
Respected in the world?
Our use of preemptive war, torture, extraordinary renditions, and the suspension of habeus corpus has diminished our standing as a champion of democratic principles and human rights in the world.
The Iraq occupation is unsustainable and wrong; it’s time to start bringing our troops home.
Retired General Col. Douglas MacGregor, a decorated combat veteran, recently made the case on NPR that it's time for the U.S. to leave Iraq. He believes that the Iraqi people must take responsibility for their own future; our presence prevents a resolution to the problems that the American invasion of Iraq has unleashed. Five years of invasion hasn’t solved the problems we created in Iraq; the hard truth is that nothing we can do will fix this for the Iraqis. We owe Iraq as much support as we can provide aside from occupying their nation. We must assist in diplomatic efforts and provide sensible financial assistance for reconstruction efforts (when such reconstruction becomes possible). Perhaps the most important thing the US must do is to learn from this blunder. After Vietnam we thought, never again. This time we must do better.
I refuse to be silent.
Update: Yesterday, Congressional Candidate Darcy Burner along with other Democratic Congressional Candidates released A Responsible Plan For Ending The War In Iraq.
Yesterday, I signed on to endorse "A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq".
You can read the plan, and sign on as an endorser here: Responsible Plan.
We must elect more and better Democrats who stand for peace with justice. I stood up to George Bush, and I’ll stand for you with a new Congress to end the Iraq debacle and bring our troops home.
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http://www.harrytaylorforcongress.com/