Iraq War

Dear Editor, I firmly oppose using our National Guard to fight our foreign wars. It is a "National Guard. " It was never created to be an international fighting force. All throughout our history, the Guard has been badly misused. It continues to be misused by Bush to wage his criminal Iraq War. It is the job of our regular armed forces and their reserve components to fight our foreign wars. It is not the duty of our National Guard to do so. The Guard is for "national" use. The governor of each state or commonwealth is the commander in chief of the National Guard units in his or her state or commonwealth.

GOFFSTOWN, N.H. - Two questions from Sunday's Democratic debate: Does Joe Biden have to set himself on fire to get serious attention? And whatever happened to the lunch bucket issues that once made Democrats the dominant political party in America? Maybe because he doesn't have much to lose, Biden was the most passionate, straight-talking figure on the stage here at Saint Anselm College. But so much coverage was lavished on John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and their scuffling over Iraq and health care that you might have missed this.

WASHINGTON - "Let's grow up, conservatives!" Barry M. Goldwater's declaration at the 1960 Republican National Convention was designed to quell a rebellion against Richard M. Nixon, whom conservatives saw as selling out to liberals on various platform planks. Goldwater's next line was uncannily prophetic: "If we want to take this party back, and I think we can some day, let's get to work. " Forty-seven years later, the conservatives whose cause Goldwater championed still dominate the Republican Party.

Senator Harry Reid declares the Iraq war lost, Nancy Pelosi wants to bring the troops home immediately, and all the Democrats claim a majority of our citizens agree the war is lost. These are bold assertions, and they raise important questions the Democrats are not willing to discuss. First, how do we determine when a war is lost? What is the metric for a "lost war"? This is a fair question, since the Democrats insist the Bush administration must identify "metrics" that demonstrate progress in Iraq.

Nearly four years after the president declared "Mission Accomplished," our brave men and women are still fighting in Iraq. More than 3,000 Americans serving in our active and reserve military have lost their lives, and tens of thousands have been wounded. As the president deepens our involvement in Iraq by sending an additional 25,000 combat troops, Congress is stepping up its leadership by holding the president accountable for spiraling war costs and a staggering lack of progress on the ground.

Within three weeks, the United States could face a constitutional crisis over President Bush's war policy in Iraq. The president and his allies seem to want this fight. Yet insisting upon a confrontation will be another mistake in a long line of bad judgments about a conflict that grows more unpopular by the day. Last week's narrow House vote imposing an August 2008 deadline for the withdrawal of American troops was hugely significant, even if the bill stands no chance of passing in the Senate this week in its current form.

WASHINGTON - To understand how much the Iraq War has transformed the way most Americans think about foreign policy, consider what passed for shrewd analysis four years ago. The words on the "in" list included "unilateral," "bold," "robust," "transformative" and "sole remaining superpower. " The words on the "out" list included "multilateral," "nuance," "patience," "diplomacy," "allies," "history" and "prudence. " Today, the "in" and "out" lists would be almost exactly reversed.

Nearly four years after the president declared "Mission Accomplished," our brave men and women are still fighting in Iraq. More than 3,000 Americans serving in our active and reserve military have lost their lives, and tens of thousands have been wounded. As the president deepens our involvement in Iraq by sending an additional 25,000 combat troops, Congress is stepping up its leadership by holding the president accountable for spiraling war costs and a staggering lack of progress on the ground.

Dear Editor, The recent events at Walter Reed Medical Center, the disturbing figures of 50 to 60 million uninsured in America and the rapid spiraling cost of our aging population will, in the near future, converge to create the perfect storm in the health care industry. In the daily health policy report dated March 14, officials testified before the Department of Veteran Affairs that the VA has a backlog of 600,000 claims, and in addition the VA will have 638,000 first time claims in the next five years because of the Iraq war. What is alarming, according to the panelists, is the additional claims will cost between $70 billion to $150 billion.

A funny thing happened to convention-defying political courage, at least in the case of Sen. John McCain. It used to be that McCain's willingness to boldly follow his principles was considered the gold standard of selfless political principle. Now, the media portray the same boldness as primarily a drag on McCain's political ambition. For the press, courage in the pursuit of regulations on "express advocacy" advertisements paid for with soft money apparently counts much more than courage in the pursuit of victory in the Iraq War. The former launched a thousand glowing McCain profiles; the latter is launching only the question: "How will it play in New Hampshire?"