Tuesday, December 21, 2006

Dear Senator Reid:

Congratulations on your elevation to Majority Leader!

Although I live in California, my wife is a former resident of Nevada, and we frequently travel to your state.  I am appealing to you as a fellow American.

I recently read that you would agree to a "temporary" increase in the number of American soldiers currently serving in Iraq. I strongly recommend against that, because it wouldn't work. Iraq is fighting a civil war that the Iraqis must resolve themselves. Our soldiers cannot stop it, and increasing their numbers would only endanger more of them unnecessarily. Instead, it is time to bring our soldiers home.

Before the invasion of Iraq, dozens of Middle East experts warned that Saddam Hussein's regime, no matter how brutal, had no ties to al-Qaeda. Their warnings were ignored. More importantly, they warned that the inevitable consequence of toppling Saddam would be an Iraqi civil war. Again, the experts were ignored, and the invasion went ahead anyway. As the experts predicted, Iraq descended into civil war, and our soldiers are stuck in the middle. At this writing, almost three thousand American soldiers have been killed, and 140,000 of our troops are still serving in Iraq. As a leader of our government, you have two responsibilities to our soldiers: you must not send them into danger needlessly, and you must bring them home when the job is done. It is too late for the former, but the time for the latter has arrived.

Senator, the fact of the matter is this: we had a small chance to prevent an Iraqi civil war within a year of taking Baghdad. In order to seize this chance, we had to do everything right. Instead, we did everything wrong. The torture at Abu Ghraib -- where 90% of the prisoners had been arrested in error -- was the worst out of hundreds of mistakes that should have been prevented. We mismanaged the occupation and squandered the slim chance to prevent a civil war, and Iraq is now having one. Refusing to call it that does not change the facts.

The opportunity to prevent Iraq's civil war passed three years ago. Our soldiers cannot stop this conflict, no matter what they do or how many of them we send. The historical, cultural, and political divides between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds can only be solved by the Iraqis. Our nation has nothing to gain by sending more of our brave men and women into a no-win situation. It is time for our leaders to accept that our soldiers are human. We have the best-trained, most courageous fighting force in the world, but it is neither realistic nor patriotic to expect them do the impossible. The fact is that our soldiers have done all that they can in Iraq, and it is time to bring them home.

Yours sincerely,

C. Colvin

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Dear Senator Feinstein:

Congratulations on your re-election! We are glad that you will continue representing our state in the Senate.

Senator, it is imperative that you do everything in your power to bring the Iraq war to a close in the fastest and most humane way possible. That being the case, it is vital that you do everything you can to block the President from sending more of our soldiers to Iraq. The Iraq Study Group has concluded that approach wouldn't work. It is immoral for President Bush to put more of our troops in danger because he's too arrogant to listen to the experts.

Senator Feinstein, we're counting on you.

Yours sincerely,

C. Colvin