Text Box: Dannion’s Worldview Hello Everybody: This month, I’d like for us to take a look at ourselves for just a moment, okay? As you know, our country was attacked on September 11, 2001 by a group known by the name, Al Qaeda. They are based in Afghanistan, supported and protected by the radical Islamic regime, The Taliban. We fervently went after these organizations and most especially, the Al Qaeda leader, Osama Ben Laden. We doggedly drove the Taliban from Afghanistan and made the vice president of an American oil company the president of the entire country. In all this time, we’ve never captured Ben Laden, yet we’ve allowed Afghanistan to produce 90% of the world’s heroin supply, unabated. Today, Afghanistan is run by warlords and drug lords, despite our efforts to the contrary. At best, America and her allies have control of two cities in Afghanistan. Well, after our journey into Afghanistan, we decided to attack Iraq next; a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the 911 attacks on America. To date, we have lost between 3600 and 4600 American lives as the result of this attack on Iraq, while we’ve made every company in the Military Industrial Complex rich beyond their wildest dreams. Billions of dollars have even been wasted on unfinished and abandoned Iraqi rebuilding projects. Due to these political shenanigans, America is in such financially hot water that the Secretary of the Treasury has gone before Congress to ask for a raise in the debt ceiling or else we will be bankrupt by October. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that we have to borrow three billion dollars a day in order to keep our country functioning? And take a look at from whom we are burrowing it: the Chinese, the Japanese and the European Union! More importantly, who is going to pay this debt? Well, quite honesty this debt will be passed down through the future generations well into the lives of our great-great grandchildren. So, let’s be very honest with ourselves about what we’ve really done in Iraq. Before we invaded this ancient country of grandeur, it was one of the most beautiful and educated countries in the Middle East. We have caused the deaths of more than 650,000 Iraqi citizens – men, women and children. We have displaced and left homeless more than two million people. Millions of others – professional people - (doctors, lawyers and teachers) have left their homeland in search of a better life due to the upheaval and destruction we have perpetrated. On a daily basis, over four million citizens have no food to eat, no sanitation at their disposal, and most egregiously, they often have no water to drink! Baghdad, the capitol of Iraq, only has electricity for one hour per day and they have had no water for the past six days (as of today, August 3, 2007). In the past, when the water did arrive, it was so polluted that many children were poisoned by it and often suffered from dysentery after drinking it. I ask you: what in the world have we done here? And how are we going to explain this to our grandchildren? On top of all these atrocities, our government has now moved three complete carrier battle groups into position off the coast of the Persian Gulf. Maintaining these battle groups is costing the American taxpayers approximately one half billion dollars a day. Friends, what are we thinking? We’re selling billions of dollars in weapons to literally every country in the Middle East. We have become so crazy that we are even supplying weapons to the same groups who were killing us six month ago. Where does the madness end? If WWIII is coming, we have only ourselves to blame. During the month of August, our state representatives are given a recess in order to touch base with their home districts. Please make a point of writing or visiting your state representatives so that you can open a dialogue regarding the role America is playing in world affairs. Remind them, in the immortal words of the former Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, “ All politics are local. Sooner or later, you will have to come home to answer to us. Or you will not be going back to Washington!” We must take back our country before it is too late. In love and purpose, Dannion