SwiftVets.com

[AIJ Alom]

Note to everyone. If you are a moderate, a liberal, or an independent. Try posting at www.freerepublic.com. My following post was removed in 3 minutes as if it never existed and other members who wished to speak to me, I could not communicate with.

We are a nation of compromise. Everyone deserves to be heard and judge on their merits and history including the Swift Boat Vets for Truth. Likewise, if their is a dissenting viewpoint it needs to be heard as well. That is the truest sense of patriotism.

Can anyone change my mind ? I was swing voter. Or will you simply shut me out again ?

September 11th, 2001 - The most infamous attack on our nation's soil. Almost three thousand innocent souls lost their lives. We awoke to a nightmare and mourned as a nation that day.

As soon as I heard what had happened, I immediately said Osama Bin Laden. See my interest has always been foreign relations, politics, and history. So instead of watching Friends or the Simpsons in the late 90's I listened WABC radio in New York. I liked listening to Rush and Hannity in the afternoon and Bachelor and Alexander at night. I also kept up in the New York Times about the embassy bombings, the USS Cole tragedy, Bin Laden's fatwa on America, and the disturbing Taliban in Afghanistan. I knew who the culprit was as soon as I watched the second plane hit the south tower. September 11th was a day of shock and pain, of worry and grief, but the nation as a whole pulled together. Everyone was united in our sorrow and almost everyone was united in our need for vengeance. Our need and desire to get Bin Laden was priority #1.

Whatever it took. I didn't balk when the president took the social security surplus and broke that campaign promise. Nor did I mind that he was raiding the budget surpluses that were going to be used the pay off the national debt.

I couldn't volunteer for the military, I was in school and the people nearest to me would not allow it, nor was I in shape, I had just had an accident with a truck a month earlier. Many of my friends were already enlisted and several members of my family also went to war on behalf of our nation. So I did the next best thing, I found the Muslim discussion forums. I looked for the terrorist web sites. During the Afghanistan War, I sent countless emails to the FBI and the CIA. I gave them some of my best ideas for combating terrorism.

The battle to take Afghanistan was swift and decisive. The Taliban proved to be nothing more than a confederation that easily broke, once the centralized leadership fled into the mountains. During one of the skirmishes, it was believed that Bin Laden was dead, but I knew better, my monitoring of the Islamic web sites told me otherwise. Osama was still out there, recovering, hidden by Pakistani allies loyal to him.

Strangely, the President declared victory even though we hadn't gotten our man. The administration had completely changed gears. Bin Laden took a back seat and Iraq became the focus.

I feel betrayed. Like so many Americans, I was duped into supporting the war in Iraq. And though to this day I still support our heroic troops in Iraq, I no longer support the Bush administration. If we had finished off Bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan as we were promised and the economy was given time to recover from the Afghan conflict, President Bush would have won re-election easily. But he decided to gamble and lost. We lost.

In the fall of 2002, I did not immediately jump on board to support the invasion of Iraq because all of the intelligence did not agree. Scott Ritter, the UN weapons inspector, had indicated that Iraq did not pose an immediate threat or posses weapons of mass destruction. To me, Iraq did not seem a major threat, considering Bin Laden was still out there and the economy needed time to recover from the conflict in Afghanistan. Why should we move valuable intelligence resources, monitoring equipment, and special forces troops to Iraq when the man who took credit for September 11th and bragged about it in Arabic was still out there ?

In 2003, weeks before the war, Collin Powell with his impassioned plea before the United Nations and to our allies, changed my mind. Here was a level headed leader of the last Gulf War telling us Iraq did possess WMD, had connections to Al Qaeda, and most importantly that we had intelligence resources on the ground confirming this was the case. I remember this distinctly, because it reminded me of how our brave soldiers had risked life and limb on the ground in Afghanistan to gather intel a year earlier.

We were told that American soldiers would be welcomed as liberators. Any resistance would simply disappear into the country side. True we overthrew a brutal dictator in Saddam Hussein and true many Iraqis are eternally grateful. The president in fact, declared mission accomplished on May 2, 2003.

The the mission was and still is far from over. More than a year has passed, yet brave American soldiers are still dying in Iraq. As I write this letter, the Iraq war has claimed 925 American lives and 6,000 casualties. I still support our troops and I still pray daily that no harm befalls them, particularly my family and friends in the military. We went to war to prevent the terrorists from attacking us with weapons of mass destruction, yet now the president only speaks of freedom for Iraqi people.

I like many of my fellow Americans feel betrayed. We who no longer feel good about Iraq feel the president took advantage of our vulnerability and anger from September 11th. He took advantage of our patriotism, our love of country, and support for our troops to extend the war into Iraq. Knowing that the same intelligence agencies had failed him prior to September 11th, he still used their findings to lead us into an unnecessary but just conflict without an exit strategy. President Bush also believed a man named Mohammad Chalabi, who along with his family were the hush-hush intelligence on the ground no one wanted to talk about fearing their safety. Chalabi turned out to be an Iranian spy who had lied. I consider Chalabi public enemy # 2 - I hold him most accountable for the unnecesary shedding of American blood.

We have not and may not ever find the WMD, but we have overburdened our military and are now committed to nation building. Things that President Bush had promised would not happen when he was elected.

Iraqi freedom has and will be secured with American blood and sacrifice. Yet Osama Bin Laden, the man behind our collective sorrow and the leader of the greatest threat to American freedom remains free in Afghanistan. His terror camps have reopened. And because we have 140,000 soldiers and support personal dedicated to rebuilding Iraq and only 10,000 in Afghanistan without the necessary resources, we must depend upon Pakistan to fight “the real war on terror” against Bin Laden. Most of America doesn't even trust Pakistan as an ally !

The home front fairs no better. America’s ports and borders are left largely unprotected. Our nuclear facilities are vulnerable. It's been reported that Muslim men are geting in through the Mexican border with fresh haircuts, shaves, and new clothes (I told the FBI this would happen in 2002). The funding is simply not there to build up two nations and maintain our own. We have no funding to take care of America and cannot fight the terrorists in Afghanistan, because we have so over committed to Iraq, the noble but unnecessary cause.

Americans have sacrificed as we were asked. Some of us have lost family members, friends, and coworkers in Iraq. Many of us still pray daily for courageous soldiers still there, whom have had their tours extended. We have sacrificed our security at home to fight this war in Iraq. We have sacrificed our civil liberties so that the terrorists may be caught, yet they are coming through our porous borders. We pay more for bread, milk, and oil. We face the greatest national debt in our history and we sacrificed the Social Security and budget surpluses for years of budget deficits, all for the Iraq war.

I have to ask why did we go into Iraq alone ? If we had waited this would have never have happened. We wouldn't have lost so many brave souls for a noble but unnecessary cause in Iraq. We could have been fiscally responsible and let the economy recover first before we took the gamble of the century. President Bush would have been re-elected easily with record approval ratings.

The American people need an apology from their president.

Yours truly,

AIJ Alom

[justamom]

I can certainly understand and identify with all that you have said and respect you for the level-headed, intelligent manner in which you "spoke".

However, given the current circumstances, WHAT DO WE DO? Certainly we cannot simply hand over our nation AND our remaining freedom to John Kerry. One only has to review his behavior over the last several months to understand what a tragic mistake that would be.

So, WHAT DO WE DO?

[stupson]

[Uisguex Jack]

Well everyone is entitled to their opinion.


Here's another view and WHY I WILL VOTE FOR BUSH:

There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq during the month of January. In the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the month of January.

That’s just one American city, about as deadly as the entire war torn country of Iraq.

When some claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war, think about the following:

FDR led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us: Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.

Truman finished that war and started one in Korea' North Korea never attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,334 per year.

John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us.

Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.

Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent; Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.

In the three years since terrorists attacked us President Bush has liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Queda, put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000-plus of his own people.

The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking, but, it took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Dravidian compound. That was a 51-day operation.

We've been looking for evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.

It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Ted Kennedy to Call the police after his Oldsmobile sank.

It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in Florida!

Our Commander -In-Chief is doing a great job! The military morale is high! The biased media hopes we are too ignorant to realize these facts. --------------Jim Pileggi

[Uisguex Jack]

Oh by the way this line of yours:

[SharpTalons]

I am 100% sure that AIJAlom is the chief moderator of the official DNC blog. Look for his posts in the URL below. While it certainly doesn't diminish the validity of his message, it certainly fires the synapses.

http://www.democrats.org/blog/comment/00010876.html#comments

[Grampa]

People who say Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terrorism are fooling themselves or are trying to fool others for political ends.

Kerry has a history of coddling Marxist Dictators who have supported terrorism in the name of their "revolution".

Also, try being a centrist or moderate Republican and post on the DU boards. Your posts disappear faster than a pizza in front of Michael Moore.

Politics is the art of compromise. There will be no compromise with our stance on John kerry or in the war on terrorism.
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Iraqi Freedom 2003-2004. We won't take any of that 1960s crap when We come home!

[carpro]

This topic is not germain to the mission of Swiftvets. Suggest you start another thread with reasons you will vote for Kerry. Bush doesn't matter.
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"If he believes his 1971 indictment of his country and his fellow veterans was true, then he couldn't possibly be proud of his Vietnam service."