Bring the boys back home

Mr Stewart,

Your site presents me with a great dilemma. You see, I've walked long distances in hand-me-down boots and fired automatic rifles myself. I support and worry for the Grunt working in-country, and really do hope that all your countrymen return home as soon as possible.

But I cannot stomach the idea that they're fighting evil in Iraq. It's been proven, oh so many times, that Mr Hussein was merely a corrupt, violent, arrogant leader of a very bankrupt country; similar to how I think Americans see Mr Castro. While we both know that the US invaded Cuba in Mr Kennedy's time, I think we can both agree that Cuba is just not a military threat to your nation -- in the same way which the Dominicans specifically twice posed no threat to America during Mr Johnson's presidency, to cite another of many examples.

And neither was Iraq; today, three years ago and probably 13 years ago as well. Militarily speaking, it was a shambles from about the second day of the Air War, if it ever posed any kind of threat in the first place to a country so many thousands of miles away. All the stories of WMDs have been shown to be blatantly bogus, and your Military Leaders have broken almost every rule of war ever conceived after WWI, WWII or Vietnam. The idea that an organization founded 60 years ago on an ideal of collective security has its home offices in a country which has belligerently invaded another country almost twice every decade in the last 60 years, is tragic.

My point is, the fighting of the evil which most threatens your nation will be done via letters to senators and, one day, a complete overhaul of your democratic process. If your countrymen are fighting evil, then they're in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are at their typewriters and computers, they are at their post offices, and some of the more expressive are manning pointless picket lines in the hopes of suggesting that national aggression isn't the way to beat the energy crisis. The picket lines and the protests are unfortunately the only front lines that should matter to Americans at this point, and restoring your country to something worth of a constitution should be your only goal.

Would I like to bring your troops home? Of course; not to want them home is disgraceful on many fronts, most of all to the residents who call that irradiated soil home. But I would not bring home the dozens stationed in the mountains who are fighting an evil your people have forgotten, and I cannot fund a society which so deludes itself regarding the purpose of the people who are stationed in Iraq.

Sincerely, and with Great Hope for your Future,
- me