Guest Comment: Iraq is President Bush’s war

Have we become a nation of cowards? No, and not a nation willing to continue with misguided leadership.

In Mr. James O’Berry’s commentary of May 2, “Have we become a nation of cowards,” he indulges once again in a very long hyperbolic harangue. Look at it again.

The comment says that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi have attained their levels of incompetence! Is that because they are carrying out their constitutional responsibilities in representing the views of over 60 percent of Americans?

In looking for incompetence, there’s no need to look to the Democratic Party. If this president were competent, he would have hesitated before launching his war of choice in Iraq. He would have kept his promise to Congress and the nation and made going to war in Iraq a matter of last resort.

The president continues to talk about victory in Iraq, and he continues to change what he means. At least he seems to be getting a part of the message from Gen. Petraeus, who has repeatedly said there will be no military solution — at best only an Iraqi political solution.

The president has vaguely described victory as some kind of a subsidence in Iraqi sectarian fighting. That fight has been going on for over half a millennium. Does this president expect our military to resolve such matters?

The O’Berry comment asserts that it is unprecedented for Speaker Pelosi and others in Congress to meet with countries such as Syria. On the contrary, meetings of this type have occurred throughout American history. The comment fails to mention that, in Speaker Pelosi’s meetings, Republicans accompanied her and that a separate congressional delegation of just Republicans had similar meetings the week preceding the Speaker’s.

The comment says that Speaker Pelosi misrepresented Israel’s position in her meeting with Syrian leaders. Not true. The Speaker was asked by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to carry a message to Syrian leaders, and as affirmed by her bipartisan group she did so accurately. The fact that Mr. Olmert could not take the heat from his Israeli opposition and subsequently flip-flopped is but another indication of his dire political situation.

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the House Armed Services Committee are assaulted for removing the term “War on Terror” from their vocabulary. Incredible! While Democrats have repeatedly tried to get this president to engage the real War on Terror, he has ignored that war and thrown the nation into a senseless war of his choice in Iraq.

Continuing the offense, the comment impugns the motives of Congress for questioning the wisdom of the fourth in a series of troop surges when all previous ones failed.

On funding of the Iraq war, once again the comment ignores the fact that the president was forced to request emergency dollars, because as in all of his previous Iraq-war spending, he stubbornly refused to be candid with the American people and would not put the war expenses in his budget. Under such conditions, how could his performance against budget ever have any meaning?

The comment attacks so-called pork in the recent congressional supplemental. How could a comment be so hypocritical? The pork referred to is badly needed funding for military and veteran’s health care, and some support for Katrina victims. Every Iraq war supplemental passed by prior Republican Congresses had larger funding for real pork, such as for bridges to nowhere.

Contrary to the comment’s assertions, Democrats, and some Republicans in Congress as well, do indeed support our troops, but in a responsible way—a way recommended by the bipartisan commission on the Iraq war and a way recommended by a long list of retired generals and military leaders. It’s a way that protects our interests in the region but does not keep our finest bogged down in the midst of a deadly civil war.

The comment asks, “Do you think any nation will ever trust the United States to come to their defense again if we are not willing to protect our own self-interest?”

Good question.

The rest of the world has been asking for over four years, how could the world’s only superpower be fighting an unnecessary war in Iraq while ignoring its own self-interest in the real War on Terror? How will America ever regain support from other nations in the real War on Terror and in confronting other world troubles?

Lastly, the comment refers to “connecting the dots." A good subject indeed! It would have been good if this president had real dots to connect in his decision to go to war in Iraq. All those he hyped have proven to be false, and a continuum of evidence indicates he knew it at the time.

This president has had a free hand and unlimited support in launching and conducting his war in Iraq. But now that most of America, including a growing number of Republicans, see how misguided the president has been throughout this war, the comment has the eagerness and audacity to try laying blame on the Democratic Congress. Abominable! No matter what happens, the Iraq war is and will remain the president’s war.

Connie (Douglass) Woodbrey is a native of Portland, Maine. She and her husband Jim moved to Green Valley from St. Louis, Mo, in 1999. Earlier they resided in Wilbraham, Mass., Silver Spring, Md. and E. Lansing, Mich. Connie has a B.A. degree in Sociology and worked in that field before becoming a fulltime homemaker and the mother of two daughters and a son. She has teacher training and has always been active in, and an avid student of politics. The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily this newspaper’s.