As a taxpayer and loyal patriotic American, I am outraged that in these times of high unemployment and
rising massive personal and national debt, our government is spending hundreds of billions of our hard
earned dollars on a failed policy in Iraq while our society and physical infrastructure here at home are
crumbling from within.

Mr. Bush expects us to believe that the situation in Iraq is "a lot better than you probably think", yet our troops
are dying daily. Over 350 dead and thousands of severely injured to date while the Bush-Cheney
administration quietly reduces veterans' benefits! 

Many reservists who signed up to guard airports have now been in Iraq for six months or more with no hopes
of coming home soon - in part because even our traditional allies, after being insulted by Rumsfeld & Co.,
won't send troops to Iraq. Our troops are demoralized.

Where are the weapons of mass destruction that were the rationale for this war? According to the
Washington Post: "A broad survey of U.S. troops in Iraq  found that half of those questioned described their
unit's morale as low and their training as insufficient, and said they do not plan to reenlist. The survey,
conducted by the Pentagon-funded Stars and Stripes newspaper, also recorded about a third of the
respondents complaining that their mission lacks clear definition and characterizing the war in Iraq as of little
or no value. Fully 40 percent said the jobs they were doing had little or nothing to do with their training."

We need a change of course and better leadership, not more smoke and mirrors, secrecy and deception. 
Bush seems unwilling to make the drastic change necessary to salvage the operation in Iraq. This
intransigence, with little opposition from the Democrats, is putting our international reputation, our national
security, and the safety of our troops and citizens in danger. 

Members of this administration continue to inflame anti-American sentiment with such bravado statements as
"bring 'em on" and Lt. General Boykin's "my God was bigger than their God". The extremist militant Christian
fundamentalist wing of the present ruling elite are not your father's Republican Party! They are corrupt,
greedy, military-industrial opportunists who are draining the U.S. Treasury at our expense. The
nation-building contracts in Iraq are rife with waste and crony capitalism.   Halliburton, the firm that Dick
Cheney led in the 1990s, is receiving billions of dollars in no-bid contracts while contractors whose bids are
lower are being ignored. And they are charging us exorbitant rates for Iraq's reconstruction.

For example, $50,000 per bed for new Iraqi prisons, which is more than twice what we pay on average here. 
Meanwhile, many of our American cities and states are on the verge of default and cannot fund adequate
schools, hospitals, police and fire departments to protect us here at home.

At the same time we are told we must give up more of our traditional civil liberties via such Orwellian-named
madness as the Patriot Acts 1 & 2, the very freedoms we are supposedly warring now to establish in other
countries! Shades of Big Brother and "thought crimes"?

The Cheney-Wolfowitz neo-conservative-Project For A New American Century-war on Iraq has actually
increased the danger of terrorism to Americans here at home.

Reuters News reports that "War in Iraq has swollen the ranks of al Qaeda and galvanized the Islamic militant
group's will." Conservative icon Barry Goldwater said in 1994 that: "Our problem is with these neoconservatives,
the radical right, the religious extremists whose interpretation is very narrow, and who want to destroy everybody
who doesn't agree with them. I see them as betrayers of the fundamental principles of conservatism. A lot of
so-called conservatives today don't know what the word means.'"  

The current ruling class has given huge tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans while reducing the health and
welfare services that our poor and elderly so desperately need. The national debt is the highest it has ever
been in our nation's history, yet the mega-corporations who funded the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Ashcroft
ascension to power now pay little or no taxes thanks to their off-shore addresses and have more legal rights
than the law-abiding, play-by-the-rules American citizen taxpayer. 

We are not better off than we were four years ago and another four years of these destructive policies will
quite possibly put an end to whatever democracy we have left. Wake up America. If you remain asleep,
ignorant, apathetic, naive or brainwashed, you will lose your cherished lifestyle, your liberty and your pursuit
of happiness to greedy corporate owned politicians! 

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