CONGRESSMAN PETER ROSKOM'S OCTOBER, 2009 REPORT CARD ON MIDDLE EAST WARS

November 14, 2009

Congressman Peter Roskam
150 S. Bloomingdale Road, Suite 200
Bloomingdale, IL 60108

Dear Congressman Roskam,

Do you ever fully contemplate the enormity of the human toll from our senseless wars in the Middle East that you support to the tune of 400 million dollars daily?

We all know, because the Defense Department cannot cover up American deaths, that as of today, 5,278 American servicemen have died in those wars.

But the Defense Department does minimize publication about the walking and non-walking injured, to deflect attention from the human toll that you folks in the war party choose to ignore.

Fortunately for those of us working to end these wars there is the Veterans for Common Sense, http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/, a nonprofit advocacy group seeking to advance the health and readjustment of returning military personnel. Here is some of their startling fact finding which you, and every Congressman who funds these futile wars, should ponder.

230 service members committed suicide in Iraq and Afghanistan through October 3, 2009.

70,772 service members in Iraq have been wounded or injured due to all causes, hostile and otherwise

13,407 service members in Afghanistan have been wounded or injured due to all causes, hostile and otherwise

Total casualties including dead, wounded or injured in both wars is approaching 90,000

454,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have sought care from the VA since coming home, representing 40% of the total veteran population

Of that 454,000 seeking help, 45 % were diagnosed with a mental health condition and 27% of those had post-traumatic stress disorder.

If you do know full well the scope of this human tragedy, you sure aren’t letting it stop you from authorizing another 400 millions of borrowed dollars daily to add to that staggering human toll.

Sadly, the march toward a hundred thousand American casualties and the millions of foreigners who are dead, injured and forced to flee their homes from the American invader, has never caused you to veer for a moment from the destructive path you so eagerly joined when you entered Congress in January, 2007.

The next time you trumpet your opposition to Big Government programs designed to aid the less privileged folks in America, like the forty-five million who don’t have health insurance, look in the mirror and ask yourself why you keep supporting Big Government criminal war.

Respectfully,

Walt Zlotow
IL Sixth District Resident

STARVE THE BEAST - OBAMA STYLE

Under Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush, conservatives opposed to any government spending, other than on militarism and protection of economic elites, implemented their policy of "starve the beast". It involved not outright closing down social programs, but instead, simply reducing or eliminating their funding, hence the term starve the beast.

Now under President Obama, we are seeing a bit of that same strategy in regard to our criminal Afghanistan war. Several months ago General Stanley McChrystal publically proclaimed we needed an immediate infusion of 40,000 to 60,000 more troops to prevent mission failure in Iraq. Instead, President Obama has embarked on a two month long "review" of the Afghan mission without a single extra soldier being sent, much to the outrage of the war party.

Every day that goes by without a decision by the President is another day of starvation for our senseless and failed and unnecessary beast we call American exceptionalism in the Middle East.

Unlike his predecessor, this President knows a real beast when he sees one.

Also published in the Chicago Tribune, November 25, 2009

TRY THEM HERE BUT DON'T KILL THEM ANYWHERE

The Obama Administration decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New Your federal court, almost within the shadow of the World Trade Center, is both fitting and just. This move is in keeping with the great American system of jurisprudence and will help blunt the stain of the previous administration's torture of the defendants and their incarceration in the American gulag at Guantanamo for six long years without access to the most basic of defendant rights. Although any trial is far off, it is not too early for humanitarian minded Americans everywhere to begin lobbying against the death penalty should the Sheikh and his cohorts be convicted. Besides being barbaric and unnecessary, the death penalty would most likely make martyrs of the perpetrators and give a boost to their terrorist recruiting efforts.

It would also set a good precedent should America regain its moral compass and prosecute the leaders in the Bush Administration who told lies, and used scare tactics, intimidation and propaganda to launch a criminal war against Iraq which caused millions of casualties and refugees. Maybe even those folks might realize the stakes for themselves and join the effort to spare the Sheikh.