The Job in Iraq
Still Unfinished

A little sanity, please—and maybe a little effort to look beyond the election. If we apply the current logic about the portion of the War on Terror going on in Iraq then the following logic applies as well:

Consider, there have been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the last 32 months and a total of 2,912 deaths. That gives a firearm death rate of 55 per 100,000 soldiers. The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000 for the same period.

That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in the U.S. Capital, which has the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq. Conclusion: The U.S. should pull out of Washington D.C.

Stop being so naïve, folks. Stop supporting politicians who are just going to say anything to make you happy and get your vote from minute to minute, issue to issue, event to event.

These are the same guys who expect you and I to make do with whatever the bureaucracy decides is our fair share when Social Security kicks in while they get 100% of their current pay, with cost of living allowances, for the rest of their lives and then drop an added $250,000 plus on their spouses the last few years they live. Please, stop being so short-sighted and naïve.

I went the last time we fought Iraq ('90-'91) and you, the American people, stopped us before we completely destroyed Sadam and his army. I know, I know—but the UN resolution said… well, now we're back. Like it or not, we're there. Vote Bush out and we're still there.

My son went back with the Marines and we beat Sadam. Now you want us to leave the country in chaos because it's the "right thing to do." Will my grandkids have to finish the job? Will they have to suffer from the results of a nation and possibly a whole region of the world full of an absolutely critical (for now) strategic resource drowning in a never-ending civil war?

How many more Iraqis will die because we quit on them again—we already did it once in 1991 and thousands, maybe more, died. Who in the world will want us as a friend and ally when we leave so many in the lurch (Vietnam's mountain tribes, Iran, Laos, Cambodia, Somalia, etc, etc, etc.) because some politician wants your vote and will do and say anything to get it? Political expediency vs. doing what's right. And NO I am not a Republican or a Democrat. I vote the person on all the issues, not the party hack on one. Please try it—you'll like it!

JJ Kavanaugh, MSG, USAF(Ret)

Braintree