Dear Neighbor,
I dropped in to Shades Cafe Monday to affirm Lisa, the owner, for her closing to allow her employees to participate in the protest. While I disagree with the protesters, I admire people who care and take a stand in concert with true American traditions. More of us should follow her example of getting involved.
Liberals and conservatives alike properly condemned the lack of civility repre
sented by kicking the head of the effigy of the Vice President of the United States, and prefer a more civil response to disagreement. Attack a person's ideas, not the person. In Parenting 101, we are told to never say "you are a bad boy," but instead, "what you did was wrong, but you are special and loved." For intelligent exchange of ideas, civility is essential. "Treat others as you want to be treated" is a proverb intended for all of us and not just for people holding high office. The protesters have a right to demonstrate, whether it’s civil or uncivil, actions are easily forgiven. But when people actively promulgate lies against individuals, we need to ask, are our neighbors simply ill-informed or deceitfully willing to destroy another's reputation to advance their own selfish political agenda?
There are those in our community who adamantly state that the Vice President was ultimately behind the "outing" of CIA Agent Valerie Plame, despite the fact Scooter Libby was found not guilty and I personally heard Colin Powell tell several hundred people in Aspen, CO, several weeks ago, that his colleague Richard Armitage, was the person who revealed her name.
Still others accuse the Vice President of "lying" about WMD in Iraq and tricking us into invading. Have they forgotten the October 1998 passage of the Iraq Liberation Act, without a single dissenting Senator, that supported removing Saddam from power and promoting Iraqi democracy in its place? Two months later President Clinton bombed facilities in Iraq he believed were connected to Saddam's WMD production. In 1998!
Have none of the protestors read the July 7th, 2004, report of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence which included Democratic Senators Levin, Feinstein, Wyden, Durbin and John Edwards which concluded: "The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration Officials tried to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction"?
Are they unaware of the Silberman-Robb Intelligence Committee Report which revealed the information developed by our intelligence community was less than stellar. Turns out crucial sources came from an informant code named "Curveball," handled exclusively by German Intelligence Agencies. Our guys never talked to him.
Have they forgotten President Bill Clinton's comment of February 17th,1998 (even before George Bush and Dick Cheney were even nominated): "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear; We want to seriously diminish the theat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." or....
Madeline Albright's February 1, 1998, statement: "We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the civility and security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction.”
Later in 2002 Al Gore pronounced: "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country" and Ted Kennedy added: "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction. " Were all these knowledgeable political leaders "lying" too?!
John McCain said it well: "It’s a lie to say the President lied to the American people".
Why hasn't the lie that the Vice President is personally profiting from the war been confronted? Those promulgating this lie need to tell us how much and how! The Cheney's 2006 tax return reflect a tax bill of $413,326.00 from his VP salary; a $27,500 pension from Union Pacific; her royalty advance on her upcoming book about growing up in Wyoming and her $32,000 pension as a former director of Reader's Digest. Not a penny from Halliburton, so I guess their tax accountants must be lying as well. Their $104,425 donations to charity in 2006 brings their total to $7,800,019 during his vice presidency.
So what do we do now?
We can argue and disagree all day about the circumstances in which we entered Iraq, which are completely irrelevant now. What do we do going forward? The past is the past. Colin Powell reminded all of us, "If you break it, you own it." He did not say, "If you break it, get out of the store as soon as you can." Our efforts in Iraq do not constitute "a war". As al-Qaeda's #2 man, Ayman Al-Zawahiri wrote to his Chief Deputy in Iraq, Zarqawi, that this is the most important front in their larger plan of imposing an Islamic Caliphate across the broader Middle East, and Spain to Indonesia. There are bin Laden clones in 60 different countries and Iraq would become a haven and a staging ground to attack neighboring nations.
Do the protestors believe that if we retreat, all the al-Qaeda fighters who have come to Iraq will return to their countries to happily grow poppies in peace and contentment or will they gather strength and encouragement and proceed to invade neighboring countries? Can the protestors make a case that we will be better off with bin Laden and Zawahiri in control of Iraq?
What credibility will America have in aligning ourselves in the future with other people in need of democracy? Are we asking Maliki to perform the impossible by coalescing Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites into a cohesive government? Maybe he can reconcile Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump too.
Dick Cheney is a decent human being. I like him. I like his wife. It's fun to see him and his daughter, Mary hunting together. I'm grateful for his leadership and curious why, if everyone accuses the Bush/Cheney Administration for the failures of Katrina, they don't give them credit for the fact that we've had no terrorist attack on our soil since 2001.
We must all educate ourselves about the enemy we face and realize that it’s far more ominous than our confrontations with Nazism and Communism. How many of the protesters have seen the documentary Obsession?
I invite the protestors and everyone to engage in a civil discussion of these issues by logging onto http://www.fosterfriess.com/ and sharing your comments below (you don't have to be civil, if you don't want to). The mission of the site is to provide you with information on important issues you can pass along so that your fellow Americans will know as much about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as they know about Anna Nicole Smith.
God bless,
P.S. If you would like to make a comment, scroll down to the end of the other comments; click on "post a comment"; type in your message; click on "other"; and enter your name (or your initials or brother-in-law's initials so I can respond directly back to your comment); then click "publish your comment". I'll be waiting for you at "the campfire"
