Senator Edward’s Letters to a constituent

Photo:

An Iraqi child cries during a funeral for one of four civilians who were killed after a car bomb exploded Thursday in the al-Jadida district, eastern Baghdad, Iraq, in this Friday, Oct. 12, 2007 file photo.Iraqi civilian deaths have tracked the decline and overall violence across the country in 2007 and is down roughly 60 percent.
(AP Photo/Hadi Mizban) He was crying for his brother. This is what Senator Edward's vote for more war accomplished.

I decided to go through all the letters I have saved to and from Senators Edwards, Dole, Burr and Rep. Taylor and Shuler. There were also a few letters mixed in to bush and various other elected officials. I have (over the years) just stuck them all in one file – a very large file. I found just separating them out to be like going through sewage.

The first letter that I received from Senator Edwards was dated October 18, 2002. It was in response to my letter telling him not to vote for the authorization to use force on Iraq. It is clear in his letter that Edward’s understood this to be an authorization to use force (and wage war) on Iraq, and it is very clear that he supported it. It is also clear that he either believes that Saddam had WMDs or that he is willing to repeat the lies fostered on the American public. Hard to tell if this is stupidity (I figured out there were no nuclear capabilities being developed – and it was not hard at all) or if he is just lying. I would think if Edwards was generally just misinformed by having been misled, then he would have gotten very angry at some point and started an investigation into why he was misled. That never happened. Here’s a bit of what he said:

I believe that the risk of inaction is far greater then the risk of action.

Saddam Hussein’s regime is a grave threat to America and our allies. For more than 20 years, Hussein has sought weapons of mass destruction through every possible means. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons today, that he used them in the post, and that he is doing everything he can to build more. Everyday he gets closer to his longtime goal of nuclear capability.

He goes on to paint a scenario of how horrible it would be for the world if Saddam obtained weapons of mass destruction. Edwards also stated that he wanted our “allies” to join in this war on terror, which became a war on Iraq. He is also concerned about continuing the search for al Qaeda. He said this:

Even as we lead the world to eliminate the Iraqi weapons threat in particular and global proliferation in general, we must maintain our resolve in the long-term fight against terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. I reject the notion that this is an either-or choice. Our national security requires us to do both, and we are up to the challenge.

Well, living aside the fact that bin Laden is still out there and al Qaeda is stronger than ever, I am personally interested in “global proliferation in general”. I don’t recall Senator Edwards doing anything along those lines. I do know that he was recorded as “Not Voting” for the Smaller Nuclear Weapons Research bill and the Bunker Buster Nuclear-armed Development bill. Maybe he is only concerned about global proliferation outside the USA. That was in June 2003 – a staff person told me he ‘was not on the job’ at the time.

The next letter that I have in my file from Senator Edwards comes from March 2003. I had asked him about humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan, and he stated that he supported that effort. However, he did not answer my follow-up letter asking why the US was giving 300 million in aid to Afghanistan in 2003 while giving ONE BILLION to Pakistan. However, the letter that I wrote to him in March of 2003 was on many more subjects than Afghanistan….. for example, I wanted to know why there was so little money ($3 million) devoted to study of what our government officials knew about the 9/11 attacks before they happened and $50 million devoted to study of the Challenger explosion and $80 million devoted to study of Clinton’s zipper.

But the main thrust of the letter was to argue against starting a war on Iraq and how ashamed I was of my country for even considering such a thing. I brought up several other issues in my four page long letter (which was shorter than some letters I wrote in the fall of 2002), but Senator Edwards did not address those issues. His letter only talked about Afghanistan.

In April of 2003, I started writing letters to Senator Edwards that quoted from his letter to me in October 2002. I was quite certain that the US would not find any nuclear WMDs in Iraq long before the US invaded. I could not be certain that there were no biological or chemical WMDs prior to the invasion, but I knew by April of 2003 that if Iraq had any, they would have used them. Common sense told me this.

Common sense also would have told anyone that any possible chemical or biological WMDs could not be used against people in the US in 2003 – Iraq had no way of getting them to the US. Common sense would also tell one that while chemical and biological weapons can kill a lot of people, they are not true WMDs anyway.

Common sense is in short supply in the halls of the US Senate and US House of Representatives apparently.

I pointed out to Edwards that “WAR IS A FAILURE OF HUMAN INTELLIGENCE AND HUMAN COMPASSION”. Maybe I should have also pointed out that, through out history; the ones starting up a war where none exists are LIARS.

A letter I received from Senator Edwards in May 2003 contains these statements:

Victory means winning the peace. We have proved that we have firepower. Now we much show that we have staying power.

In the coming months and years, America faces the enormous challenge of helping the Iraqi people rebuild their lives in peace and prosperity. If we do this right, we have a chance to ensure that the United States occupies a place of respect and admiration in the world.

Well, I certainly have never considered myself part of that “we” he is talking about. And I have seen NO sign that the US has helped Iraq rebuild their lives in the past five years. All I have seen is more and more destruction of structures and the lives of ordinary Iraqis. And I certainly do not see the US occupying a place of respect and admiration in the world. I also have not seen or heard Edwards leading the charge, or even advocate, for rebuilding Iraq or helping the Iraqi people.

I went to Google and linked "John Edwards"+"Iraq civilian casualties" just to see what I might find. I got 984 hits. I took at look at 30 of them – none had direct quotes from Edwards that I could find. Then I went to Edwards campaign site - and looked at the Iraq page on that site.

Not a word on that page about Iraqi civilian casualties, or how much the Iraqis are suffering, or any plans to do something about that suffering. Nothing in any article I read, but I didn’t read every last one of them – only about half.

As far as I can tell, Edwards has not addressed the Iraqi deaths or injuries, or how the US invasion and occupation has destroyed their country and the lives of tens of millions of people. Rather, it is like they do not exist. I do not recall him every saying a word about reparations to Iraqis, much less giving a detailed plan for such reparations.

Edwards did make the statement: “the Iraqi people must solve the problem politically by taking responsibility for their country” on his webpage. Yes, it is true that the Iraqi people will have to solve the problems in their country by themselves; much like an abused child has to “solve” the problems in adulthood that resulted from that abuse. It would sound cruel for an abusive parent to say “the children must solve the problems they have from their abusive childhoods by taking responsibility for their own lives.” It is true, but a heartless thing to say when you caused the damage.

I wrote several more letters about Iraq to Edwards during 2003, and received a response from Senator Edwards in a letter dated October 7, 2003. In this letter, he starts arguing that he had warned president bush about the challenges of what to do after Saddam was gone. He points out that bush did not heed his advice. He makes the claim that bush did not plan at all – and I really question that. (I think bush and company had a plan, and they followed it exactly.) Senator Edwards also addresses how other nations needed to get involved in reconstruction in Iraq, and he outlined how they could do this in cooperation with a UN civilian administration. He pointed out how this would preserve the “absolutely essential American control of our forces” but still allow other nations to participate. I guess he forgot about the UN bombing in August of that year and how the UN pulled out after that. He argues that the bush administration needed to present a long-term plan for success in Iraq. Personally, I think the bush administration has achieved their idea of “success” in Iraq, except for the oil law. I think that this letter from Edwards is a CYA kind of letter.

He further states in this letter “Winning the peace in Iraq will require many months, probably several years. It will cost tens of billions of dollars more than can be accounted for by Iraqi oil revenues.”

I find several interesting, if fallacious, ideas in these two sentences – like “winning the peace” – how can we “win” a war crime, an illegal war of aggression? Edwards is quite off in the “several years” and “tens of billions of dollars” assessment. I find it strange that “Iraqi oil revenues” should be used to rebuild what the US has destroyed. The US should pay every penny to rebuild what they have destroyed in Iraq, and reparation for the lives they have destroyed. That is what every aggressor country that starts wars should do.

I got another letter from Senator Edwards dated October 14, 2003. It was identical as the prior letter – only the last sentence was different.

The next letter I received was in May 2004. I had written several letters in between. Edwards said that “I share your concern for these soldiers” but apparently he does not share my concern for Iraqi civilians. He made the claim in this letter that America’s military personnel went to Iraq “to defend this great nation”. Well, that is a lie. Edwards also commented that we needed to bring in other countries into “this effort” in Iraq and that the US does not shoulder these burdens alone. I don’t see why other countries should be asked to help “this effort” in Iraq. They did not make the evil mess. I think they did the morally correct thing by staying away.

The next letter, and the last one I have, is dated July 12, 2004. (I believe I saved all the letters I received from Edwards, just for the record.) In this one, he addresses my concerns about the prisoner abuse and torture in Iraq’s prisons. He had this to say:

We have an obligation to Americans, Iraqis, and the larger international community to ask difficult questions of the US military and civilian leadership, especially Secretary Rumsfeld. We should expect and demand that these officials and the Administration cooperate fully. We must take actions to ensure that such deplorable acts never occur again.

And Senator Edwards had the PREFECT platform to ask such “difficult questions” – he was running for Vice President at the time. The issue was not raised. No one demand that the “officials” cooperate at all. Only a few low-level troops were brought to justice. (I personally will never believe those soldiers just got creative at Abu Ghraib, took pictures and posted them as screen savers, all on their own initiative. Also, I will also always believe that Rumsfeld deliberately “outed” Joe Darby, and Rumsfeld was never brought to any justice for having done so.) Actions to “ensure that such deplorable acts never occur again” were not pursued. Those abuse and crimes, uncovered in 2004, likely continue to this day – along with kidnapping (rendition), rape, torture, murder, and god-knows-what-else. We do know that evidence (tapes) of the ongoing torture was destroyed. Edwards and Kerry did not raise these issues, and did not pursue efforts to see that they don’t happen again.

I fail to understand why this was not a big campaign issue in 2004.

Edwards made a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in May of 2007. He had this bit to say:

We need to get out of Iraq on our own timetable, not when we are forced to do so by events. As a recent Council report put it, the U.S. "has already achieved all that it is likely to achieve in Iraq...[and] staying in Iraq can only drive up the price of these gains in blood, treasure, and strategic position."

Iraq has done tremendous damage to the U.S. interests in the Middle East, our military, and to our moral authority to lead. It has also completely consumed our country's foreign policy debate. In Congress and the White House, the focus has been on when to get out, how to get out, and how quickly. Too little consideration has been given to what happens after we get out -- and that is the very least we owe to the men and women of the U.S. armed forces and their families, who have sacrificed so much.

I believe that once we are out of Iraq, the U.S. must retain sufficient forces in the region to prevent a genocide, deter a regional spillover of the civil war, and prevent an Al Qaeda safe haven. We will most likely need to retain Quick Reaction Forces in Kuwait and in the Persian Gulf.

I am glad he wants to get out of Iraq, but find the retaining “sufficient forces” in the region a bit worrying. In the first paragraph, I find it very odd to claim that there were “gains” made in Iraq. The invasion did get rid of Saddam, and then turned most of the country into a pure hell-hole. This invasion and occupation killed a million (or more) Iraqi people and made another four million (or more) refugees. This is not a “gain” – it is a horror beyond mere words. I wonder what exactly Edwards thinks we have achieved in Iraq….. beyond destroying the place and putting tens of millions into misery.

And, it is bizzare that he said that Iraq has done tremendous damage to US interests, but actually it is quite the other way around. We did a huge amount of damage to Iraq and Iraq’s interests. I don’t know if the country will recover, frankly.

I also find it very odd and troubling that Edwards sees what happens in Iraq after the US troops get out as somehow connected to “the very least we owe” to our military. Does he think that our troops are to be used for democracy promotion (a pure line of b.s.) or does he think that our troops are to be used for access to Iraq’s oil? I see our military’s role as being protectors of our country from an invasion or attack. What they are currently doing in Iraq is working to build empire and control a resource (that is not ours) – and this is totally wrong.

So, in summary, Edwards now admits that voting for this invasion and occupation was wrong, but it took him quite a while to do that. And it seems to me that he has deducted it was wrong for all the wrong reasons, and missed the real reason his decision to vote that way in 2002 was wrong.

And that reason would be because wars of aggression against a country that did not attack us is EVIL and IMMORAL, just like it was when the Nazis went into Poland and occupied that country. The Nuremberg Principles spells all this out nicely, and any person with any real morals would be able to see that this war was evil before Edwards and Congress ever voted on it. A little bit of thought (back in 2002) would also have lead to the conclusion that this war was also very stupid.

All of this lack of regard for the damage resulting from his decision to attack and invade Iraq makes me wonder if he has the ability to think about what has happened to the Iraqi people…… or if he even has a moral base that guides his life and decisions.

This was also posted on Daily Kos blog.