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Brian Stuckey of Denver writes:

Navy Captain Paul Sherbo has it right in his Speakout column. It is indeed encouraging to hear our veterans speaking out in defense of our troops in Iraq, especially when the mainstream media is invested in their defeat. It is veterans like Don Ottaway and Diggs Brown, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, who know the real story. If more Americans were listening to the troops instead of the mainstream media, there would be less screaming and more dedication to the task at hand. The enemy is not having this debate. Should Americans be any less dedicated?

This letter has not been edited.

READER COMMENTS

Uhh, Brian, we are.

Poll of troops in Iraq sees 72% support for withdrawal within a year

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=34538&archive=true

Brian
Pay no attention to FlimFlam's bogus liberal website he posted. He always does that. We all know just because it's on the web it does not mean it it an un- biased legitamate poll.
Yes our Boys would like to come home but not until the job in Iraq is done.

Support Our Troops.

Stars and Stripes is a bogus liberal website? I had no idea.

Shut up and sign up Brian

I'm always leary of polls that won't reveal exactly what the question was, how it was presented, what the multiple choice answers were or how those polled were selected.

But anecdotal evidence from one person or a few people, well that proves a point!

KW, looking for this?

http://www.zogby.com/iraq.pdf

12:23: It seems to me those who claim to support our troops are by definition opposed to the invasion of Irag -- whether they realize it or not. This war is an immoral and criminal misuse of our military.

Why don't we address the 15 British sailors being held hostage by Iran.

We need to remember that Moremad is a loon. He has quite an agenda he's itching to unfold and he's daring the rest of the world powers to try and stop him. Iraq is a pimple compared to the havoc Moremad will unleash if he isn't stopped.

"If more Americans were listening to the troops instead of the mainstream media, there would be less screaming and more dedication to the task at hand. "

Er, what is the task at hand?

what is the task at hand

a) Securing Iraqi oilfields
b) Denying them to anybody else
c) Preventing Iraq from switching to the Euro

Some questions.
1) Why can't people rationally criticize the president and support the troops at the same time? is that not possible?
2) Check out the IVAW website sometime. Shouldn't their opinions matter, or are they to be ignored since they go against the main neo-con agenda? They were there too, after all.
3) Why is Afghanistan lumped into the same category? Most Americans had no problem going after OBL and the Taliban, and now Bush and the neo-cons seem to have forgotten about him.

For all of you out there who firmly believe in the war in Iraq - enlist. If you are too old, suggest that your children or grandchildren enlist. Buy the armor for the troops over there that the parents of many of the troops are currently buying. Contribute to renovating & cleaning up the VA hospitals for the young men & women who are coming back in pieces. SCREAM when the government cuts military benefits. DEMAND that military pay - even pay for members of the National Guard who are have been called up to active duty be high enough that military families don't have to go on food stamps. FYI - I am an adult child of a man who spent over 30 years in the military & watched his post-retirement benefits get cut to more than cover any cost of living adjustments he received. I watched while my brother (who served 20 years) had his family's medical benefits taken away WHILE he was in the Air Force & my sister, who served 16 years was caught in change-over between methods of contributing to college tuition - and got nothing. This happened during both Democratic & Republican administrations - and for those of you who have forgotten, more than 1/2 of the Clinton administration years, Republicans were in charge of Congress - and led the charge to cut military costs, including downsizing the military.

Poll questions usually have a margin of error anywhere around +5 or -5%...also what was the representative sample dispostion, how the question was worded, who sponsered the survey, etc?
Secondly, there are always soldiers who want to go home if given the choice. Others extend their tours of duty for various reasons. In the beginings of the Iraq adventures...there was a couple of soldiers who had the bizarre idea that they would not have to fight in a combat situation when called up?!
I saw a frontline documentary(hardly a conseravative program) which showed the day to day lifes of soldiers in Iraq. Yes, they preferred home...but they are there to do a job. They complained about the anti war protestor's and their ilk...saying that if they really wanted to help the troops...sign up and come over. Also, they wanted more of a free hand in combatting the insurgents.
Laslty, if you do give your soldiers a clear idea of victory and let them pursue by all means necessary...of course you will get dissention in the ranks. The whole point of war is destroying the enemies means to wage war and total victory. Anything short of that is cheating the soldiers fighting there.

Many are unable to do as you suggest for multiple reasons. My husband is a disabled veteran and I agree that his benefits have been cut and damaged and totally trashed. He still works because his disability pay wouldn't pay rent on a buffet apartment. I am diabled due to heart attacks and kidney failure. We have insurance and VA can't be bothered to bill the co-pays to the insurance company. Many of my husband's medications are exchanged for generic and usually this is fine but when the generic is also denied I get angry. He developed diabetes and we thought it had no relationship to his service. The doctor corrected this stating that the food, working condtions and medications he had been taking for injuries, including a shoulder shattered by a large caliber shell, had a substantial contribution and he considered them to be a primary cause and listed his diabetes as service related. When we asked for a glucose meter we were told that only those on medications were allowed to have them. Then we bought a meter with our insurance and had our doctor prescribe the medications. Now VA insists that he use their meter and test strips and they don't charge much but they also refuse to allow him his medication for neuropathy in his feet which makes walking something like walking on a combination of hot coals and broken glass. They have also delayed a review of his disability status and informed us that it could take up to a year. The last time they reviewed him they lost records and delayed things and finally gave him an increase in the percentage from 20 percent to 30 percent but they forgot about the injuries to his legs which had been the basis for his disability. For now they are not billing us because I threatened to call the media but that won't stop them for long.
WE must reform the VA and the manner in which our soldiers are compensayed. When that happens we will have a stornger military and a safer country.

You know, I have friends and co-workers constantly coming and going from Iraq and Afganistan. It's very interesting to compare their stories and the news. They all tell stories of grateful Iraqis- women who no longer worry about their husbands disappearing in middle of the night, or their male children being forced into military cannon fodder, or being raped to send messages. Stories about the schools up and running with electricity and water. Stories about being able to vote. Stories about minorities who are no longer afraid of the Gov't harassing and killing them, in addition to the other factions and fanatics. Hmm...

Well gee Fiesty, one would hope that with hundreds of billions of dollars spent, there would be a least some good news.

Now about the water and electricity supply still being below pre-war levels, the 650,000 dead Iraqi, the hundreds of bombed hospitals, the bombed sewerage plants – any idea when that will be sorted out?
Any plans to resurrect the dead, give back arms and legs to amputees, and find those WMD that Rumsfeld knew the locations of?
… and just where are those flowers and sweets we were supposed to get, still on backorder maybe?
Maybe when they arrive the clock will start on those “6 days, 6 weeks, I doubt six months” that this was going to last.

By the way, why did we bomb sewerage treatment plants and hospitals?

I have an idea, other than this enormously left-wing liberal media bias we have that resisted invasion so very much, the reason you don’t see much reporting on great improvements in Iraq is because of the very constant stream of actual bad news.
Y’know, like daily car bombs, the hundreds of attacks per week, the mass executions, the hostage taking, the civil war, and so on. A bit difficult to get excited about a school being rebuilt when students get blown up on their way to it.

While you are at it, could you explain what this is exactly?
It’s not a war, since no war was declared, so is this a “police action”, a “hot pursuit” military action, a peace-keeping mission, is it a humanitarian program maybe?

unfortunately, though I think we definitely were needed to topple Saddam, we stayed too long. plus you're doomed to fail when dealing with terrorists.

Ok, who's masquerading as fiesty? Has to be someone because I never agree with him.

I don't have a lot of friends with first hand knowledge but the ones I do know, and who they know, all say the media depictions here only highlight the negative happenings even though the positive aspects out number them. Unfortunetly this has helped shape the public impression of whats really going on over their.

er, rather, make that over there

KW- maybe today we need to buy a lottery ticket :-)

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