My letter to the editor....

How many Iraqi’s were on those planes that hit TWC? None.
So why are we in Iraq?

The Bush administration was successful in duping the American public into a war and occupation of Iraq under the guise of a “war on terrorism” yet nothing this administration declared as fact before the invasion has proven to be true.

They blame this on an “intelligence failure”. They were told by the intelligence agencies throughout the federal government along with UN Weapons Inspectors – past and present - that their information was dubious at best. But because of their radical agenda for the Middle East, they ignored all of the caveats and proceeded to scare the American public into invading a country that was not a threat to anyone, as the facts on the ground have born out.

The Bush administration realizing that to keep support up for an immoral, illegal war of aggression has changed the reasons for this war whenever the facts have flown in the face of stated excuses for invading. From defeating a fantasy WMD threat to creating democracy in Iraq. Which begs the question – if you wanted to create a democracy in the Middle East, why not start with your so-called allies such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE instead of launching an unprovoked invasion?

There is one reason they will never admit to as to why US soldiers are getting killed and are killing Iraqi’s – oil and Israeli security.

There are no WMD’s in Iraq. The Al-Qaeda cell in Iraq BEFORE the invasion was in the north of Iraq where Saddam Hussein had no control - that cell (Ansar Al-Islam) was a Kurdish group fighting Saddam Hussein. Pre-war statements about “Al-Qaeda being in Iraq” did not tell the whole story and served the purposes of a dishonest government determined to launch a war based on lies for an extreme political agenda.

The lies of the Bush administration about Iraq were known before the invasion by the corporate media but received little if any attention. The mainstream media is just as much to blame for this mess in Iraq as the Bush administration – for they did not do their job of informing the American public and holding the Bush administrations feet to the fire about claims made of Iraq’s threat to the US. There were plenty of dissenting sources out there to draw from - as was done by alternative news sources such as Democracy Now - but corporate-owned mainstream media decided to beat the war-drums instead. Now a lot of people are dead and maimed because of lies and unaccountable government and media.

The cry from the rightwing now is - it’s better to fight them in Iraq instead of here in the US. To which I respond – Fight whom? The Bush administration has made Iraq fertile ground for terrorism and US forces in Iraq are now engaged in a battle of fighting the “terrorists” and Iraqi’s who have suffered under US occupation. Bush is losing hearts and minds in Iraq with such a policy of turning their neighborhoods, villages and cities into battlegrounds – killing innocent civilians in the process. Razor wiring whole villages, torture, collective punishment, curfews, a snails-pace reconstruction effort, checkpoints, roadblocks, sky-high unemployment and intermittent public services, no-bid sweetheart deal contracts- crony capitalism. Is this what democracy looks like?

But, it's probably too long to get published. My experience has been that the chance of getting printed is inversely proportional to length. Good luck though!

I've had pretty lengthy (500 to 1000 words) letters posted in my local paper, the Akron Beacon Journal. However, I've noticed that the Columbus Dispatch favors the short and sweet responses.