A lifelong Republican thinks about Iran

Dear Harry,

My nephew called me the other night and asked if I didn’t think we should go ahead and “take Iran out” since the government says they have been helping the bad guys in Iraq. I thought I would share with you what I told him, since it represents a little different perspective on my part. As you know I fought in Korea, and was in the VFW and have been a big backer of our Presidents, even Clinton. I voted for Eisenhower, Goldwater, Nixon and Ford, and in 1980 voted for John Anderson, because I thought he’d be a better president than a retired actor.

I did vote for Reagan later on, and a couple of times for Perot, who I thought had a lot of common sense.

But I now deeply regret voting for George W. Bush. I never liked the Bush bunch, much. Rich guys who seemed only interested in making a buck off the voters. Barry Goldwater would have called George W. Bush a fraud, and as I recall, didn’t have a whole lot of regard for the first Bush, either.

I haven’t answered the Iran question yet, because I wanted to remind you of where my support has been over the years. These people running our government now have put me in a bind. I no longer am sure I can believe what our government tells us. They’ve been lying to us, Harry, and twice bit, three times shy.

It seems like only yesterday that the President pounded on the lectern during his State of the Union address and talked about how Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction, maybe nukes and was helping out Osama bin Laden. We now know none of this was true.

Then we saw Secretary of State Powell at the U.N. showing images of how the Iraqis were playing games, hiding their weapons from the U.N. inspectors. We now know this was not true, either.

Then we heard from the Vice-President and Rumsfeld about how things were getting better all the time in Iraq, and now only an idiot would believe him. That no-bid deal Cheney and Rumsfeld put through with Halliburton bothered me a lot to begin with.

Now we read our wounded veterans aren’t getting the care they need because the guys running the White House and the congress didn’t put through enough funds, not to mention the badly equipped men in the field all over Iraq.

These guys are either complete liars or are complete fools, and they must think we are fools, too.

Now they are telling us they think Iran has been supplying the bad guys in Iraq with weapons and they are sounding like Iran will be next on the list. But the government of Iran says they have not been doing this, and Harry, I hate to say it, but why should I believe our government over the Iran government? The guys in Washington have lied to us over and over again about Iraq, while they let Osama bin Laden get away. It is a hell of mess when Americans can’t even believe our own government about something as important as war.

So, I told my nephew that no, I don’t think we should “take Iran out.” I think we should “take the liars in the White House out”, instead. Impeachment proceedings would be well deserved. I doubt anybody in Washington has the spine to do it, but it would be a bright day in America, if they did.