Starting with Beth from Blue Star Chronicles, who, as she puts it, has a son in the "bowels of Baghdad."
It starts with this:
The argument regarding funding for the war on Capital Hill is frustrating for those of us with children serving in the bowels of Baghdad.
Further excerpts show this:
Nancy Pelosi declares that it’s sad that President Bush thinks that al-Qaeda is in Iraq. Even while she makes these sneering statements our Soldiers, our sons and our daughters, are fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq. High level Iraqi operatives have been captured in Iraq and the Congressmen and news media either ignore it or spend their time discussing whether or not our Troops, our sons and our daughters, will mistreat them while they are being held for questioning.
The Troops, our sons and our daughters, are having their time down range extended. In many cases indefinitely. They are having to do repeated rotations. It’s a volunteer Army, that’s their job. But doesn’t it just grate on you to hear the criticism of every move they make? Doesn’t it just make your head explode to know that news media and progressives are just waiting for one to slip up, in the fog of war, and make a mistake so they can slander the American Military for the world to hear? Don’t you want to scream at those Congressmen and tell them to quit using our sons and our daughters for their own political gain?
In yet another excerpt she says:
There is a disconnect between the people in this country and our Soldiers fighting this war. We have little to no real help from other countries. Our Soldiers are in the dangerous areas. Our Soldiers are carrying the heaviest part of the load for the Western world.
Our country forgot about 9/11. Everyone has moved on. Everyone except our enemy who still declares their intention to destroy us and the American Soldier who stands alone between them and us.
Please read her whole piece and take a look at the picture she has up.
It is not only our soldiers the Democrats are betraying by ignoring their words and emails and letters, but it is their mothers, fathers, spouses, sisters, brothers and children they are betraying.
We showed you A Soldier's Letter to America yesterday and it bears repeating today for those that missed it. (This soldier specifically asks that everyone pass this letter around)
Be my voice. I want this message heard. It is mine and my platoon’s to the country. A man I know lost his legs the other night. He is in another company in our batallion. I can no longer be silent after watching the sacrifices made by Iraqis and Americans everyday.Send it to a congressman if you have to. Send it to FOX news if you have to. Let this message be heard please…
My fellow Americans, I have a task for those with the courage and fortitude to take it. I have a message that needs not fall on deaf ears. A vision the blind need to see. I am not a political man nor one with great wisdom. I am just a soldier who finds himself helping rebuild a country that he helped liberate a couple years ago.
I have watched on television how the American public questions why their mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters are fighting and dying in a country 9000 miles away from their own soil. Take the word of a soldier, for that is all I am, that our cause is a noble one. The reason we are here is one worth fighting for. A cause that has been the most costly and sought after cause in our small span of existence on our little planet. Bought in blood and paid for by those brave enough to give the ultimate sacrifice to obtain it. A right that is given to every man, woman, and child I believe by God. I am talking of freedom.
Freedom. One word but yet countless words could never capture it’s true meaning or power. “For those who have fought for it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know.” I read that once and it couldn’t be more true. It’s not the average American’s fault that he or she is “blind and deaf” to the taste of freedom. Most American’s are born into their God given right so it is all they ever know. I was once one of them. I would even dare to say that it isn’t surprising that they take for granted what they have had all their life. My experiences in the military however opened my eyes to the truth.
Ironically you will find the biggest outcries of opposition to our cause from those who have had no military experience and haven’t had to fight for freedom. I challenge all of those who are daring enough to question such a noble cause to come here for just a month and see it first hand. I have a feeling that many voices would be silenced.
I watched Cindy Sheehan sit on the President’s lawn and say that America isn’t worth dying for. Later she corrected herself and said Iraq isn’t worth dying for. She badmouthed all that her son had fought and died for. I bet he is rolling over in his grave.
Ladies and gentleman I ask you this. What if you lived in a country that wasn’t free? What if someone told you when you could have heat, electricity, and water? What if you had no sewage systems so human waste flowed into the streets? What if someone would kill you for bad-mouthing your government? What if you weren’t allowed to watch TV, connect to the internet, or have cell phones unless under extreme censorship? What if you couldn’t put shoes on your child’s feet?
You need not to have a great understanding of the world but rather common sense to realize that it is our duty as HUMAN BEINGS to free the oppressed. If you lived that way would you not want someone to help you????
The Iraqi’s pour into the streets to wave at us and when we liberated the cities during the war they gathered in the thousands to cheer, hug and kiss us. It was what the soldier’s in WW2 experienced, yet no one questioned their cause!! Saddam was no better than Hitler! He tortured and killed thousands of innocent people. We are heroes over here, yet American’s badmouth our President for having us here.
Every police station here has a dozen or more memorials for officers that were murdered trying to ensure that their people live free. These are husbands, fathers, and sons killed every day. What if it were your country? What would your choice be? Everything we fight for is worth the blood that may be shed. The media never reports the true HEROISM I witness everyday in the Iraqi’s. Yes there are bad one’s here, but I assure you they are a minuscule percent. Yet they are a number big enough to cause worry in this country’s future.
I have watched brave souls give their all and lose thier lives and limbs for this cause. I will no longer stand silent and let the “deaf and blind” be the only voice shouting. Stonewall Jackson once said, “All that I have, all that I am is at the service of the country.” For these brave souls who gave the ultimate sacrifice, including your son Cindy Sheehan, I will shout till I can no longer. These men and women are heroes. Their spirit lives on in their military and they will never be forgotten. They did not die in vain but rather for a cause that is larger than all of us.
My fellow countrymen and women, we are not overseas for our country alone but also another. We are here to spread democracy and freedom to those who KNOW the true taste of it because they fight for it everyday. You can see the desire in their eyes and I am honored to fight alongside them as an Infantryman in the 101st Airborne.
Freedom is not free, but yet it is everyone’s right to have. Ironic isn’t it? That is why we are here. Though you will always have the skeptics, I know that most of our military will agree with this message. Please, at the request of this soldier spread this message to all you know. We are in Operation Iraqi Freedom and that is our goal. It is a cause that I and thousands of others stand ready to pay the ultimate sacrifice for because, Cindy Sheehan, freedom is worth dying for, no matter what country it is! And after the world is free only then can we hope to have peace.
SGT Walter J. Rausch and 1st Platoon
101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)
So, as asked, we are trying to be his voice.
Wapo shows us how the GOP base reacts when a Republican stabs our troops in the back.
With public opinion tilting firmly toward ending U.S. involvement in the war in Iraq, Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest (R-Md.) might have expected praise for his votes that would start to bring the troops home. Instead, at town hall meetings on the Eastern Shore, the former Marine and Vietnam combat veteran has been called a coward and a traitor.
After Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) voted for a nonbinding resolution opposing President Bush's troop increases, reaction in his district was so furious that local GOP officials all but invited a primary challenge to the reliable conservative. Inglis responded with multiple mailings to his constituents, fence-mending efforts and a video message on his House Web site pleading his case. On subsequent Iraq votes, he has not strayed from the Republican fold.
[...]
That cohesion reflects the views of the GOP's core voters, who see the war in Iraq in fundamentally different terms than Democrats and political independents do, said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Voters from those groups tend to see unremitting gloom, but Republican base voters continue to see a conflict that is going reasonably well, with a decent chance of military success.
I bring up this article because of the words of Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.):
"What this is about is not who is comfortable or who is uncomfortable, whether we can all hold hands. This is about the fact . . . that American troops are dying for no good reason at this point,"
Once again showing that Feingold as well as the rest of the Democrats completely IGNORE what the troops and their families are saying....
See, to Feingold and his ilk, Freedom is NOT worth dying for, to our soldiers there is no better cause to risk life and limb and to spill blood over.
Just glance up to the Letter to America from our soldier and you will see the difference between one that is willing to DIE for another country to be free and Feingold who couldn't give a damn about Iraqi's OR their fight for freedom.
What a stunning contrast huh?
One is a politician that cares only about politics and his career and the other a soldier that puts his life on the line every day to fight for a cause HE believes is just.
Which one is IN Iraq? Which one is trying to stay in Washington?
Which one shows patriotism and which one betrays that patriotism?
Which one is witness to all the things he said in his letter to America and which one gets his facts from the media and refuses to listen to the soldiers or the commanders on the ground in Iraq.
The New York Times in the meantime, in a completely bewildering about face, has finally acknowedged that we are seeing success in Iraq due to the new strategy and the new commander, General Petraeus:
Anbar Province, long the lawless heartland of the tenacious Sunni Arab resistance, is undergoing a surprising transformation. Violence is ebbing in many areas, shops and schools are reopening, police forces are growing and the insurgency appears to be in retreat.
“Many people are challenging the insurgents,” said the governor of Anbar, Maamoon S. Rahid, though he quickly added, “We know we haven’t eliminated the threat 100 percent.”
Many Sunni tribal leaders, once openly hostile to the American presence, have formed a united front with American and Iraqi government forces against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. With the tribal leaders’ encouragement, thousands of local residents have joined the police force. About 10,000 police officers are now in Anbar, up from several thousand a year ago. During the same period, the police force here in Ramadi, the provincial capital, has grown from fewer than 200 to about 4,500, American military officials say.
At the same time, American and Iraqi forces have been conducting sweeps of insurgent strongholds, particularly in and around Ramadi, leaving behind a network of police stations and military garrisons, a strategy that is also being used in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, as part of its new security plan.
Despite the Democrats best efforts to demoralize our troops and to encourage our enemies, we are seeing successes start and progress continue, which backs up what our soldiers have been telling us for weeks now via email, letters and videos.
I would also like to bring your attention to a Veteran in Nevada who has had it with Harry Reid and his betrayal of our troops while giving comfornt and encouragement to our enemies.
Harry Reid lied when he said he was “independent like Nevada” during his last campaign.
Harry Reid has not represented the majority of Nevadans since he became beholden to the lunatic fringe of the (D) party.
Harry Reid does not speak for this veteran nor many, many other Nevadan veterans.
Harry Reid’s “support” for our military has a negative sum effect on them, and therefore, he does not support the troops. Support for the troops is not about intent after all. It is about effect.
This site is solely intended to see what kind of response we can get to some ideas about retiring Senator Reid against his will. We want to share with others our disgust and contempt for Harry Reid’s politics and his message to our military.
Congress and the Senate need to get our troops their funds with no strings attached and no micromanaging.
"We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."... John F. Kennedy
Our soldiers understand Kennedy's words.... will Congress ever?
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