Letter: Let’s not risk the lives of more U.S. soldiers

Thursday, Jan. 4, 2007 | 7:03 a.m.

While President Bush recently vacationed at the ranch and met with the same advisers he has met with hundreds of times before, people were still being killed in Iraq. How long has it been since the bipartisan Iraq Study Group presented a realistic assessment of the situation in Iraq and a path to resolution? Who gets to tell the relatives of those who may die in the interim that the decider is having trouble deciding? I'm sure it won't be the president.

If the president increases troop strength in Iraq, he will be following the same philosophy as the warlords and others who maintain a paid militia to enforce their views on weaker folks by force of arms. A major difference seems to be that Bush's militia is paid for with your tax dollars. Dollars which, by the way, are really coming from foreign investment in the huge U.S. deficit.

In my opinion it is wrong to risk the lives of more soldiers and Iraqis, and to add to the cost of the Iraq invasion, without answers that satisfy a majority of Americans to really tough questions exposing the basis for and expectations of such actions. Ask yourself if you really think things will be better in Iraq after a few more weeks or months of fighting .

It is becoming clear that our votes in November did not register with those in power. It is time to rise up and ask our elected representatives at all levels of government what they are doing to resolve this crisis.

Charles R. Parrish, Las Vegas