Please Don’t Take the Bait

Be careful Democrats, Independents and clear thinking Republicans. Please don’t take the bait. Don’t get too caught up in the Pelosi/Dean/Murtha differences when it comes to how and when to end this war. Don’t take your eye off the ball.

Keep your focus on how we got into this war just as sharply as how we get out. One thing we all have in common is that we were led into this war based on lies. While Cheney uses words like “spineless” regarding those who say we must somehow end this war, remember it is more spineless to tell lies in order to take American troops into a needless war of choice. It is much more difficult to come up with factual reasons for a war than to simply tell untruths.

This division between Democrats is a smoke cloud probably stoked by a Rovian plan. Do you think the Republicans are in lockstep in their attitude about the war? I doubt it. But somehow the story is now about a Democratic split rather than the big picture. The big picture is still why we got into this war and the sharper focus must remain there. The old “divide and conquer” plan has been put into place by the Republicans. Divide the Democratic party and weaken it by half. Turn the dogs upon themselves and you have the dogs injuring one another. They do half your work for you. We just mustn’t allow that to happen.

While different people may have different opinions we can’t allow those differing opinions to be used as weapons against us. We can tolerate the differences as long as we keep cohesion in the party. Do we bring the troops home today, next week, six months from now or even a year from now? The bottom line is to bring them home as soon as possible. That’s the bottom line now, but we must continue to bring the facts to the forefront. The bush administration put those soldiers in Iraq and the reasons they gave for doing so were not honest and not truthful.

There may be a new soccer field in Iraq as bush stated yesterday, but our soldiers did not contract to fight a war to sod soccer fields in Iraq. That was not their cause and it’s no justification for a war. Had it not been for this war perhaps we would be able to provide new homes for the still-homeless on the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast, even new soccer fields there too.

Please don’t allow this to become about what Democrats think--instead, let's focus on the one thing we know for sure. This war never should have been. Not many doubt that now. So rather than concentrate on how individual Democrats feel about ending the war, we must remember it was the bush administration who got us into this war. And the weapons they used to sell this case do not exist. Had they not lied, no one would have died. This is the war we find ourselves in today and it will continue until the people of the United States have seen enough bloodshed. Some of us have already seen enough, others may tolerate more. Just keep in mind that had the Republicans told the truth, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.