Are you a traitor because you object to the war? Are you a traitor because you disagree with the President? Are you a traitor because you question the strategy or the tactics used in the war?
The answer is simple, the answer is no. And guess what, no one, not one person, has ever said otherwise.
No one who supports the mission of the war in Iraq has ever called someone a traitor simply because they have a difference of opinion. Not one person who supports the mission has ever questioned the patriotism of anyone who thinks we should not be in Iraq. It simply has not happened. Have we called people traitors? Of course we have. Have we questioned the patriotism of the anti-war crowd? You bet we have. But we have not done so for the above reasons. And it is now time to set the record straight.
Debate is healthy. No one denies this. If we don’t debate, we make bad decisions. But there is something missing from the overwhelming majority of the objections to this war. That something is honesty. If you would all band together and honestly debate the issue, we could all get along. We could even figure out how to quickly end this war. But I don’t think that ending the war is the actual objective of most. I don’t think it is the objective based upon the accusations I have seen and heard.
Before I go on, I have to clear something. I have to clear up the WMD issue, and whether or not lies were told regarding WMDs to start a war. First, intelligence agencies from multiple countries were claiming that Saddam was in clear violation of UN sanctions regarding chemical and biological weapons. There is no doubt at all that various intelligence agencies were making this claim. They were making this claim long before Bush was sworn into office. US lawmakers from the Democratic Party were repeating these claims as late as 2002. The website snopes.com has a list of the various statements made by many of them. Since the invasion, the Duelfer reports demonstrated that Saddam was making every effort to use the Oil for Food program to buy his way out of the UN sanctions so that he could reinstate his weapons programs without issue. Saddam was consistently tossing UN inspectors from his country as though he had something to hide. Iraqi General Georges Sada has told the US that Saddam was able to fly much of the material out of the country to Syria in the weeks prior to the invasion. There are also reports speculating that some materials were looted due to lax supervision during the invasion.
All this means one very important thing. Bush did NOT lie to start this war. It is possible that every intelligence agency in the world was dead wrong. It is also very possible, and much more likely, that Saddam was able to move much of the evidence before we attacked.
Now I can move back to the topic of debate. With the above knowledge, you cannot expect anyone who supports the mission to consider you to be serious when you spout the statement, “Bush lied, soldiers died.” You cannot expect this because it simply is not true. If the first thing out of your mouth is “Bush is a liar” then the first thing out of my mouth will be to accuse you of supporting the enemy. See how that works? You make a stupid statement, I respond with something that actually has some bearing. My statement has bearing because your statement is actually being repeated by the likes of Al Jazeera and other propaganda sites used by the enemy.
I will now give a list of other lies that are constantly being called “debate” by those who oppose Bush.
"And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the, of, the historical customs, religious customs."
Ok, there really is not reason for US troops to be terrorizing kids, that part is true. What is the lie here is the accusation. US troops were not terrorizing kids. But John Kerry would never let facts get in his way.
"Shamefully we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management, U.S. management."
Ted Kennedy accuses US Troops of putting innocent civilians through meat grinders.
"There was no firefight. There was no IED (improvised explosive device) that killed those innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them. And they killed innocent civilians in cold blood. That is what the report is going to tell."
That was John Murtha falsely accusing US Marines of murder. We now know that there is evidence coming to light that there was indeed a firefight and that the Marines did exactly what they were supposed to do.
Reid not only said the war was lost, he falsely accused General Petraeus of claiming the war was a lost cause. Multiple congress members have falsely accused the President of lying to start the war. Multiple congress members have falsely said we are losing.
Here are the other lies that I hear constantly:
The troops are spread too thin.
The troops don’t want to be there.
It’s worse in Iraq than it was with Saddam.
The people of Iraq were happier under Saddam.
There was no clear cut mission.
It goes on for a while. We do have the ability to use the military to deal with other countries. There are thousands of blogs online right now written by Marines and Soldiers who know that they are fighting for freedom. Poll after poll says that Iraqis feel their lives are better now than under Saddam. They don’t want US forces in their country, but they don’t want the forces to leave until the insurgents are killed. We have always had a clear cut mission in Iraq; the President has repeated this message so many times I couldn’t possibly keep track.
I’m not asking for much here, just honesty. I already know the responses that I will get to this article. I will be called a sheep. I will be told that Bush lied. I will get some stupid statements about being part of the Rush and Coulter cult. What I won’t get much of will be honesty. In fact, many of the arguments I have already shot down will simply be repeated by people who cannot be convinced of the truth.
Back to the traitor thing. There are multiple counts of the terrorists who are killing our troops and killing children claiming that they don’t expect to beat the US military in a fight. They know they can’t win. They have no delusions of grandeur. They have said over and over again that what keeps them going is the knowledge that the US will not have the stomach to endure. They know that they can effectively use the media’s coverage of suicide attacks upon school children to destroy the will of the American people. This is their goal. They have repeated the same lies I have mentioned above in this effort. The people fighting on the ground have told us time and time again that the words of surrender by people like Harry Reid are killing them. They are begging Washington to stop using them as pawns in their political struggle.
The now infamous Marine, Corporal Tyler Rock said it well, “i am a marine in iraq that isnt getting the support from a senator that should support his fellow americans. when was the last time he was here. what does he know about us “losing” besides what he wants to believe. the truth is that we are pushing al qaeda out and we are pushing the insurgency out. we are here to support a nation.”
And 1stLt Matthew McGirr USMC: “The pundits and politicians on both sides do not fully grasp the conditions on the ground here. They are arrogantly and irresponsibly using this war and the troops who fight in it for political gain and election currency. They manipulate the truth or do not care enough to seek it out. At least I know where I stand with the citizens of Ar Ramadi.”
This is why we use words like “treason” and “traitor” when we talk of Kennedy, Pelosi and others. This is why we continue to tell you that we want debate, but we want honest debate. We don’t want propaganda. Not only is this propaganda being used to gain power in Washington, it is being used to kill our men and women.
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