We write letters

Below is the text of my most recent letter to the editor of my local daily. Not to be sanctimonious but are you writing to your local paper too?

We can read and blog all we want but really the bogosphere is largely a closed universe. Sure it leaks into the real world - like in the Dan Rather dustup. But not always. Will anyone in the real world hear about the Washington Post blog fiasco in hiring a serial plagerist as a conservative balance to Dan Froomkin? I'll kill the suspense -no.

So anyway, what I'm saying is. if you want to change something, change Main Street. And still the only way to do that is to do it locally. OK end of sermon. I'll have more to say about it. Here's the letter:

Mr. President, Iraq is George Bush’s War. Make no mistake. Despite the various rationales for starting this war: The central front on the war on terror; The march of democracy in the world; WMD; Oil; 9/11 – all of which (except maybe for oil) have been shown to be pipedreams, lies, or hallucinations- this is your war of choice, George Bush’s war.

At your most recent news conference you said that getting troops out of Iraq was for “future presidents” to decide (I noted the plural - presidents).

No, Mr. President. No, Mr. Commander-In-Chief-Because-I-Said-So. No.

Iraq is your war. It is the war of choice that you decided to wage. It is the war for which you decided that no lie was too egregious, that no callousness in calling dissenters of your plans traitors was too extreme, that no manipulation of the bogus color coded “terrorist alert” index was too spurious, that no national security leak to get back at your critics was too damaging to actual national security.

You recall that you told us how important it is for you to make the hard decisions. Amidst all your lies about Iraq, your lie about preserving and protecting the Constitution, you may recall how you said you struggled to make the decisions that you make. “It’s hard work.” Yes, you told us.

Well Mr. President, you must struggle a bit more.

Iraq is your war.

Over two thousand American soldiers in Iraq have been killed in your name. Many more Americans have been maimed in your name. You have crushed the lives of thousands of American families beyond that in your perverse need to pursue a war of lies by using America’s part time soldiers for full time combat three times over.

And you are exactly one international crisis from destroying our armed services outright.

Mr. President, Iraq is your failure, a failure that is your legacy to the American people and to history as surely as the crushing deficit that you will leave to generations is.

It is not up to “future presidents” to get American soldiers out of Iraq. What makes you think future American presidents will want to be known as the President That Lost Iraq? No, it is up to one President George W. Bush to get the American soldiers out of Iraq.

I know that you don’t want to do it – to admit that you have visited a disaster upon our nation and the world. I know too that the Congress will not make you do it. The rubber-stamp House and Senate leadership is too corrupt and too busy helping you dismantle what remains of our Constitutional government after all. And the members in Congress in both parties who refuse to hold you to account are equally culpable in allowing you to continue your assault on our nation’s well being.

But, Mr. President, this cup cannot be taken from your hand. The Iraq War is your war. Only you can honorably bring our American soldiers home.