No sane person wants war. Why then does an Iowa farm boy, raised in a Quaker Church, believe it was right for President Bush to send troops to Iraq? Why do I support the war and our president? First, I believe Bush is a good person, but he also is one of the most maligned presidents we have had. His greatest failing is that he refuses to toot his own horn. He believes defending one's own reputation is not something real men should do. So, we have this endless stream of leftist vilification, which he doesn't answer. Eventually the mud thrown against the wall sticks.
Secondly, Bush is a poor communicator. If he had Bill Clinton's speaking skills and Clinton 's shamelessness, he would carry on an endless self-promotion campaign, as Clinton did, and he would negate much of the criticism. Clinton was on TV nearly every day spouting about the "best (this or that) in fifty years (or, I did not have sex)." Most of Clinton 's claims were half-truths, or outright lies, but if the public hears anything often enough they will believe it, until they see the "blue dress". Were it not for videos, they would even believe Hillary's Bosnian sniper fairytale. Those videos are Hillary's "blue dress". The unanswered demonization of Bush is so bad that even some good republican conservatives have been brainwashed by it. That is Bush's fault. Bush should have learned from Clinton to fight back. It might be too late for Bush to recover his good standing, but he should try. The Texas cowboys of the old west found it repulsive to boast of their own good deeds. Bush needs to trade in his cowboy boots for some good PR people. I support the war for two reasons: First, Dictator Saddam Hussein was a slimy, brutal monster who suffocated human freedom in Iraq . He executed hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and tiny children. He and his sons tortured and raped thousands of others, frequently forcing their families to witness the events. Imagine being forced to watch the rape of your teenaged daughter. That alone is the only reason I need to support this war.
Secondly, It has been proven to my satisfaction that Saddam encouraged terrorism and allowed Iraq to be used as a training area. Bush has wisely changed U.S. war philosophy from "sit around and wait until we are bombed," (ala Pearl Harbor ) to one of intervention. In this age, that is a wise thing, and Americans should thank God that we have a man like Bush with the courage to gather good intelligence and strike first. We must intervene against radicals who simply want to kill Americans (and the more the better). It has worked since 911.
When the USS Cole was attacked, Clinton bombed a tent in Africa. When the first World Trade Center attack occurred, Clinton didn't even bother to go to New York. Can you imagine that? Yes, I said he didn't even bother to go to New York. Check it out. That is how impotent Clinton was against terrorists. Thank God he wasn't president during 911.
Under our old rules, we would wait until a suitcase nuke fried a Super bowl crowd, then we would look for a target. Those days are over, I hope.
Finally, the Iraq war has been a huge success, largely because a vast majority of Iraqis supported the intervention of the U.S.
Here are some of the quotes I have read from different press reports. But you really have to hunt for the good reports, because the leftist press in America believes that reporting good news in Iraq is the same as giving Bush a pat on the back, and that is contrary to their agenda.
After 21 years in hiding from Saddam, an Iraqi says, " I 'thank Mr. Bush. Thank you, you are a good human, you returned me from the dead."
An Iraqi mother named her son after Bush: "I tell you all Iraqis hated Saddam's regime. It was only George Bush who liberated us. If he hadn't done it, the sons of Saddam would have ruled us for another 50 years. He saved us from Saddam and that's why we named our son after Mr. Bush."
Other comments: "We are starting to live like we used to, not the way Saddam wanted us to live."
"I have been born again. Iraq was a prison above ground and a mass grave beneath it. For the first time in half a century, Iraq has no executions, no political prisoners, no torture and almost no limits on freedom of expression. There are almost 200 newspapers and magazines that require no police permit and suffer no censorship"
"Iraq is now a free country thanks to the courage of George Bush and Tony Blair, and the US and British people who backed them."
"Someday France will apologize to Iraq."
"Those U.S. and British troops who died to liberate our country are heroes. The U.S. and Britain should not leave Iraq until they are asked to do so by a freely elected Iraqi regime.
"People are so happy not to fear being kidnapped, tortured or disappearing from one day to the next. We now have complete religious freedom and can express ourselves as we want to."
This is a hard paragraph to write. Every death of an American soldier is tragic, and my heart weeps for families who have lost anyone, but when you consider war casualities, the Iraqi numbers are light. Again, this does not minimize the tragedy of each death, but the toll at this writing is 4007, and of those, 3273 are combat deaths.
This averages 654 annually. This compares to 620,000 combat fatalities in the Civil War, and about 59,000 in Viet Nam . On 911 some 3000 innocent Americans died in two hours, killed for no other reason than this: religious fanatics want to kill as many Americans as they can.
Want another perspective? In the five years since the start of the Iraq war, approximately 85,000 murders were committed in the United States, according to government statistics.
So we have freed a nation, gained the praise of most of its civilians and cleaned out nests of terrorists in Afganistan and Iraq, thanks in part to the cooperation of local residents. Bush also has prevented attacks on our homeland. If we had a weak president, a tent-attacking-Clinton, for example, there almost certainly would have been other terrorist events on our soil since 911, and many more innocent Americans would have died. How many terrorist plots have been foiled. Unfortunately, that can't always be revealed security reasons.
But there have been other good results of the war:
UNICEF reports that more than 3 million children have been immunized.
School enrollment is up to more than 95 percent, with many more females attending than before the war.
More than 4,000 schools have been renovated.
The port of Uhm Qasar has been renovated to accept grain for the first time in 20 years.
All 240 hospitals in Iraq , as well as 2400 primary health care clinics, are operating, according to James Haverman, senior advisor to the Ministry of Health.
Textbooks that aren't dominated with propaganda about Saddam are in the schools for the first time in 30 years.
This is just a little of the good news, but you have to search to find it. The liberal press isn't puting in on Page One. That might be construed as Pro-Bush.
Marty RicKard Bio
Marty RicKard attended William Penn College , Iowa State University and University of Southern Mississippi , from which he holds a BS degree in journalism and photojournalism. He also has a Masters Degree in photography, in addition to the Craftsman, CPP, and A-ASP degrees. Marty spent two years as a technical writer for White Motor Company, and has worked for the Charles City Press, Mason City Globe-Gazette, and Davenport Times-Democrat. He was co-owner of the weekly New Sharon Star, where he was twice named Iowa Master Columnist for his article, which was syndicated in twenty Iowa newspapers. For more than a decade Marty's regular column appeared in the Professional Photographer magazine. He has been published in many other magazines and newspapers, including Writer's Digest, Writer Advice, Golf Digest, Resource Magazine, Picture, Range Finder, and Darkroom. In addition to his writing credits, Marty has won numerous photography awards, has lectured in 48 states, and has traveled internationally as lecturer, and judge. He was one of thirty from the U.S. to participate in the first cultural exchange with China in 1986. He currently is a regular columnist for Lens Magazine, and a full-time writer of fiction and poetry. He is the author of two poetry books and one volume of short stories. He is an entertaining speaker.
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