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Dear Mr. McCain,
It was with great anger that I read this quote, attributed to you, spoken at a news conference after meetings with President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
"We need very badly to form this unity government as soon as possible. We all know the polls show declining support among the American people."
Firstly, with all due respect, might I remind you that you do not speak on behalf of ‘the American people’. You speak, rather, on behalf of your president and your party. I am an American, and you certainly do not speak for me, nor for millions of my fellow citizens.
To blatantly infer that the American people are wavering in their support of the Iraqi people is, in its best light, totally misleading. And in its worst light, it is an outright lie.
The American people, for the most part, have been unified in their desire to see Iraq emerge as a united country, where its people are free to choose their own government and create their own global identity - a concept which, at every turn, has been not assisted but thwarted by the policies of your president, his Administration, and your fellow Republicans in office.
Even those of us who were against this war from the beginning have hoped that after all was said and done, some good would emerge from the death and destruction that have marked the daily lives of the men, women and children of a war-torn, occupied land.
Yes, the polls show a weakening support for this war, and that is a direct result of the conduct of our own government, and not the conduct of the Iraqi people.
You have said that we are ‘impatient’, and we certainly are.
We are impatient with the fact that American tax dollars have literally disappeared into the pockets of Halliburton and other war profiteers, instead of being spent on rebuilding Iraq’s infra-structure, its schools and hospitals, and revitalizing its economy.
We are impatient with the fact that your president keeps sending our military into harm’s way, without sufficient equipment and well-founded direction. Your party members have gutted veterans’ benefits, and have had the audacity to bill them for medical treatment that wouldn’t have been necessary had they not gone into battle in the first instance. You have used them as props in your photo-ops like so much insignificant cattle, honourable men and women to be ‘used’ to shore up failing poll numbers in an election year.
You, sir, your president, and your fellow party members who support him, have literally destroyed a nation. You have destroyed it, bombed it, occupied it, taken its citizens prisoner. You have tortured them with abandon – and you, of all people, should appreciate that kind of suffering and its impact on the hearts and minds of those who were forced to endure it, their family members, their neighbours, and their fellow countrymen.
I can only wonder if, when you were being tortured, you ever thought you would see the day when your own country would not only condone such behaviour, but embrace it – or, more to the point, that you yourself would support the very people who committed such heinous crimes in the name of the United States of America.
Yes, we are impatient, Mr. McCain. But with you and yours, not with the people of Iraq, who have endured so much unnecessary hardship at the hands of our own incompetent commander-in-chief and those who would disguise that incompetence by wrapping it in a now forever-sullied American flag.
If the people of Iraq are a bit too slow in moving forward with their own political agenda, you might ask yourself how quick any nation would be to organize and establish itself when its citizens are faced with violence, torture, death and destruction on a daily basis – circumstances which were not of their own making.
You might ask yourself how people who have to struggle to feed their families, to obtain clean drinking water, to protect themselves and their children on a daily basis, should be expected to rebuild a way of life that has been destroyed by George W. Bush and his yes-men, and do so without money, without any meaningful assistance, without hope.
In all honesty, sir, does it truly surprise you that the Iraqi people, in view of such circumstances, would fall prey to violent in-fighting, bred not so much by discontent with each other so much as discontent with those who allegedly ‘liberated’ them, only to abandon them when it became politically expedient to do so?
If you are really sincere in wanting to see further support for this undeclared war on the citizens of Iraq, it is easily accomplished: Show us the money! Show Americans that their hard-earned tax dollars are rebuilding a country, rather than lining the pockets of corporations whose shares are held by the vice president and the ‘friends’ of this administration.
Show Americans that their money is being spent on body armour for our soldiers, and not on torture devices at Abu Ghraib. Show Americans that their money is feeding the hungry, healing the sick, educating the children who will one day lead their own nation to prosperity and a better way of life.
Show us something, anything of value. Show us that somewhere, in all of this madness, there is something good that can come of what has so apparently been of no true value at all.
And the next time you speak to the Iraqi people about what the poll numbers show, please be forthright enough to explain to them how important those poll numbers are to you and yours in an election year – because that’s what it’s really all about, isn’t it?
And please, don’t deign to speak for ‘the American people’. We can speak for ourselves – and I just did.
Yours Most Truly,
Nancy Greggs
Proud Citizen of the United States of America, and Proud Supporter of the Iraqi People.
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