DESERT STORM) opposed that invasion? Those countries realized Bush was using lies and disinformation to convince you to support the invasion. I know why. You weren’t paying attention and were caught up in the emotional hysteria of post 9/11.

Now, we find ourselves two and one-half years into a quagmire from which we cannot simply walk away, although politicians and increasing numbers of you, Mr. and Mrs. America, say we should. And why cant we?

We can't because we invaded another country, overthrew its government, and disbanded its mi

I do not know if you are asleep, don’t care, or simply too busy to pay attention. But I do know, or perhaps I believe, that your inattention to the Bush Administration’s domestic and foreign policies is allowing this President to take America down a dark and dangerous path.

President Bush says he will not reverse earlier tax cuts and even says he will continue to cut taxes. None of us probably enjoys paying taxes, but the President’s assertions are misleading, at best, and perhaps even lies.

At the President’s behest, the Republican Congress has or is about to cut the amount of home mortgage interest we can deduct on our federal income taxes. That means your federal tax paid will be higher. There is talk the President is pushing for the elimination of deducting state income taxes paid from federal taxes. That means your federal tax paid will be higher. Medicaid and Medicare benefits are about to be cut. That means the poor, and most notably poor children, and the elderly will either do without or someone will have to make-up the difference. Again, more costs to Americans. The President wants to raise the age of eligibility for drawing Social Security and/or reduce benefits paid. If you have to work longer and/or receive less in benefits, that is, in effect, a tax increase. And in all of this, we still have to help in the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast and Florida and we still have to continue the war in Iraq. A war that is adding $2 - $5 billion per month to our national budget deficit.

Wake up! There is no free lunch. Telling people that you are cutting their taxes while at the same time reducing their benefits and/or increasing other costs (i.e, deductibles for military retiree medical insurance) is not a tax decrease. It is an indirect tax increase.

In Iraq, Bush’s invasion of that country against domestic and international opposition placed us in a strategic defeat unparalleled in the history of our nation. Why did you, something close to 80 percent of Mr. and Mrs. America, so blindly follow Bush into an invasion of Iraq when our closest allies (France, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Japan, not a single one of the Arab nations that supported us in DESERT STORM) opposed that invasion? Those countries realized Bush was using lies and disinformation to convince you to support the invasion. I know why. You weren’t paying attention and were caught up in the emotional hysteria of post 9/11.

Now, we find ourselves two and one-half years into a quagmire from which we cannot simply walk away, although politicians and increasing numbers of you, Mr. and Mrs. America, say we should. And why cant we?

We can't because we invaded another country, overthrew its government, and disbanded its mil

gress has or is about to cut the amount of home mortgage interest we can deduct on our federal income taxes. That means your federal tax paid will be higher. There is talk the President is pushing for the elimination of deducting state income taxes paid from federal taxes. That means your federal tax paid will be higher. Medicaid and Medicare benefits are about to be cut. That means the poor, and most notably poor children, and the elderly will either do without or someone will have to make-up the difference. Again, more costs to Americans. The President wants to raise the age of eligibility for drawing Social Security and/or reduce benefits paid. If you have to work longer and/or receive less in benefits, that is, in effect, a tax increase. And in all of this, we still have to help in the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast and Florida and we still have to continue the war in Iraq. A war that is adding $2 - $5 billion per month to our national budget deficit.

Wake up! There is no free lunch. Telling people that you are cutting their taxes while at the same time reducing their benefits and/or increasing other costs (i.e, deductibles for military retiree medical insurance) is not a tax decrease. It is an indirect tax increase.

In Iraq, Bush’s invasion of that country against domestic and international opposition placed us in a strategic defeat unparalleled in the history of our nation. Why did you, something close to 80 percent of Mr. and Mrs. America, so blindly follow Bush into an invasion of Iraq when our closest allies (France, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Japan, not a single one of the Arab nations that supported us in DESERT STORM) opposed that invasion? Those countries realized Bush was using lies and disinformation to convince you to support the invasion. I know why. You weren’t paying attention and were caught up in the emotional hysteria of post 9/11.

Now, we find ourselves two and one-half years into a quagmire from which we cannot simply walk away, although politicians and increasing numbers of you, Mr. and Mrs. America, say we should. And why cant we?

We can't because we invaded another country, overthrew its government, and disbanded its mi

President wants to raise the age of eligibility for drawing Social Security and/or reduce benefits paid. If you have to work longer and/or receive less in benefits, that is, in effect, a tax increase. And in all of this, we still have to help in the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast and Florida and we still have to continue the war in Iraq. A war that is adding $2 - $5 billion per month to our national budget deficit.

Wake up! There is no free lunch. Telling people that you are cutting their taxes while at the same time reducing their benefits and/or increasing other costs (i.e, deductibles for military retiree medical insurance) is not a tax decrease. It is an indirect tax increase.

In Iraq, Bush’s invasion of that country against domestic and international opposition placed us in a strategic defeat unparalleled in the history of our nation. Why did you, something close to 80 percent of Mr. and Mrs. America, so blindly follow Bush into an invasion of Iraq when our closest allies (France, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Japan, not a single one of the Arab nations that supported us in DESERT STORM) opposed that invasion? Those countries realized Bush was using lies and disinformation to convince you to support the invasion. I know why. You weren’t paying attention and were caught up in the emotional hysteria of post 9/11.

Now, we find ourselves two and one-half years into a quagmire from which we cannot simply walk away, although politicians and increasing numbers of you, Mr. and Mrs. America, say we should. And why cant we?

We can't because we invaded another country, overthrew its government, and disbanded its mi

fits and/or increasing other costs (i.e, deductibles for military retiree medical insurance) is not a tax decrease. It is an indirect tax increase.

In Iraq, Bush’s invasion of that country against domestic and international opposition placed us in a strategic defeat unparalleled in the history of our nation. Why did you, something close to 80 percent of Mr. and Mrs. America, so blindly follow Bush into an invasion of Iraq when our closest allies (France, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Japan, not a single one of the Arab nations that supported us in DESERT STORM) opposed that invasion? Those countries realized Bush was using lies and disinformation to convince you to support the invasion. I know why. You weren’t paying attention and were caught up in the emotional hysteria of post 9/11.

Now, we find ourselves two and one-half years into a quagmire from which we cannot simply walk away, although politicians and increasing numbers of you, Mr. and Mrs. America, say we should. And why cant we?

We can't because we invaded another country, overthrew its government, and disbanded its mi

DESERT STORM) opposed that invasion? Those countries realized Bush was using lies and disinformation to convince you to support the invasion. I know why. You weren’t paying attention and were caught up in the emotional hysteria of post 9/11.

Now, we find ourselves two and one-half years into a quagmire from which we cannot simply walk away, although politicians and increasing numbers of you, Mr. and Mrs. America, say we should. And why cant we?

We can't because we invaded another country, overthrew its government, and disbanded its military forces. We started a war. Under international conventions to which the USA is a signatory, we are obligated to secure Iraq and govern it until the Iraqi are fully capable of doing so themselves. And we cant leave because we have yet to defeat our enemies in Iraq. So, if we leave before our enemies are defeated; if we leave before we secure Iraq from domestic and foreign (i.e., Iran, Syria) threat; if we leave Iraq before a fully functioning democratic Iraqi government is in place; if we leave before Iraqi military forces and police services can control that country…..if we leave before any of the before mentioned, the United States of America will lose its first war in its history. Think of that.

So, wake up, America! Think for yourself. Don’t let Bush and his minions mislead you; don’t let the media talking heads mislead you. Your taxes, whether by direct taxation, increases in other costs, or reductions in benefits, are going up. Your sons and daughters are dying in Iraq in a war that was neither necessary nor justified but which we must stay the course to victory because anything less magnifies the strategic defeat into which Bush lead you and this nation.

You will only have as good of a government as you demand. The government you have in the form of George W. Bush is the reflection of a people who demanded very little. As such, they got very little. But in the case of the Bush Administration, that unthinking and undemanding people got a dangerous man in the Oval House. A dangerous man surrounded by dangerous advisers.