A LETTER TO THE SPEAKER

Dear Madam Speaker, as one of your constituents, I want to affirm you for going to Iraq to see for yourself what a collosal mess we're in. You are right on in your assessment. Training is a key and in my view should come via the Special Operations (Green Berets) soldiers who are trained themselves to do exactly what you have suggested. In my view, we should immediately begin a phased withdrawal of conventional soldiers out of Iraq. Iraq is Iraqnam because when we introduced conventional soldiers into that sorry war, it was lost.

I don't want to take up your valuable time by giving you anymore of my views and would only say that we are where we are and have to figure it out. More troops, regardless of what we call them, is idiocy at this point. All we are doing is putting more Americans at risk. It will not work. All along I have been proclaiming that we simply cannot win in Iraq whether we call the enemy insurgents, terrorists, or the Iraqi government in the form of militias. You cannot beat people who will blow themselves up and kill their own families and countrymen indiscriminately. Ideology aside, it simply cannot be done.

I don't know exactly how to say this gently because I cannot tell you how much I admire you: however, one thing that I personally think that Democrats have to keep in mind, we did not change the Congress for it to be business as usual. Increasing the minimum wage and many other programs are good and useful but getting us out of Iraq in one way or antoher is what we want. At the State of the Union meeting, to be honest, I was a little put out with all the kissing and hugging and bowing and scraping. I respect the presidency but let us not forget that we are exactly where we are because the "decider" and his minions simply decided wrong and over 3000 young Americans and no telling how many others will never get a chance to live out their lives in our great country. They have paid the ultimate price for his "deciding."

A last thing: for at least the last 10-12 years, I have been pushing Universal Service and actually wrote the enclosed Memoir to help me sell the idea. Universal Service's time has come. I could list all sorts of reasons that Democrats need a platform that goes back to JFK, "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." Based on the scores of people that I constantly buttonhole, I almost never run into anybody who doesn't say Universal Service is a good idea. For the life of me, I cannot understand why this is not embraced wholeheartedly by the Congress. The draft will not fly. (I actually wrote Congressman Rangel with my ideas and why the draft won't work) but giving youngsters a chance and a choice of how they give their service will. I hope you'll think about it. God bless you richly.