CONGRESSMAN ROSKAM NEEDS TO STUDY NUREMBURG WAR CRIME TRIALS

Dear Rep. Roskam,

Your April 18th response to my plea for you to defund the Iraq war and work to end it leads me to believe you need to study the Nuremburg war crime trials of 1945 -1949. You don’t address the overriding issue that the Iraq war was a war of choice against a defenseless country resulting in hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties, and four million Iraqis on the move the safer habitats. This is the type of war that Nuremburg cautioned the world leaders to avoid or suffer the consequences of being branded and punished as war criminals.

And what do you do when you enter Congress? You support this war by funding it and working against the overwhelmingly popular sentiment in America to end it. We smash Iraq to smithereens and you have the audacity to boast of your co-sponsorship of H.R. 1962 which demands that Iraq fully cooperate with U.S. efforts to create our vision of stability and security for the people of Iraq. Don’t blame the Iraqis for the catastrophe that your President, your party and now you, as pro-war Congressman for the last four months have visited upon them.

What is it about a made up, immoral and criminal war you don’t understand?

Your bill also requires the President provide Congress with a report card every 30 days on the progress of these Iraqi efforts we require. A 30 day report card is nothing more than a stunt designed to avoid the truth of our overwhelming failure in Iraq. And during each thirty day period another sixty-seven American soldiers, on average, will be “wasted” (Senator John McCain’s words) so you and your war party can avoid your judgment day by world opinion.

You are building a horrible legacy of needless death in your first term with over 320 dead Americans in your first four months. And Iraqi casualties? They are astronomical and uncountable, in part, because the administration dreads knowing the exact number caused by their misfeasance and malfeasance.

You write that the Iraqi leadership has a final opportunity to work with us to find a political solution and that they must not squander this precious opportunity. It’s not the Iraqi leadership that has a final opportunity to get things right, Congressman. It’s you and the rest of your war party that need to get things right. And you can start by going back to school and studying the lessons of Nuremburg.

Won’t you join the 70% of Americans who have already passed their Nuremburg test?

Respectfully yours,

Walt Zlotow, Sixth IL Congressional District
Originally published in Lombard Spectator, May 14, 2007
Also published in Glen Ellyn News, May 16, 2007

DEATH PENALTY ONLY FEEDS OUR BLOODLUST

Juan Luna may have been judged guilty of murder in the seven Browns Chicken killings fourteen years ago, but he should not be executed for this crime.

America may be a modern, highly educated industrial society, but it is one of the few that retains the ineffective and barbaric practice of capital punishment. Seven persons died back in 1993 because the perpetrators needed to score a few bucks and decided to leave no witnesses. The deterrent effect of the death penalty apparently had no impact on their behavior that evening even though that is one of the more humane rationales for its existence. The real reason we retain it has more to do with the bloodlust that resides in all of us and the shameful pandering of politicians and prosecutors to that bloodlust.

The seven people who died that evening do not need to be joined by two more from that incident. Instead, we should all work to foster a more sane and decent culture that will reduce such hideous criminality. There are dozens of such cultures around the world we could emulate. The death penalty, by feeding our bloodlust, does the exact opposite.

Originally published on Chicago Tribune Web Blog, May 16, 2007