Letter to the Editor

After writing the last blog entry, I was reading the Journal Sentinel online when I got a little ticked off by some woman's letter to the editor about President Bush, the war, etc. I wrote a response which the Journal Sentinel (much to my surprise) printed in the Monday, December 22nd edition (see below). It echoes a lot of what I said before. I realize my response is probably as slanted and simplistic as the coverage I see and read in the news, but I thought someone should point out some of the successes of this war instead of only detailing the failures. The failures are everywhere, but so are the successes -- history will judge whether it was worth it or not.

IRAQ WAR
The benefits are real

In response to the Dec. 17 letter "The pain is real" from Patricia Mitchell regarding President George W. Bush's "less-than-serious reaction" to the shoe-throwing incident and his "delusion" regarding the war in Iraq: I, too, wish that Bush had had a different response.
I wish he'd told the world that five years ago had someone thrown a shoe (or a disapproving glance) in the direction of a foreign dignitary in the presence of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the shoe thrower would have been tortured in indescribable ways and, if lucky, his body may have found its way to a mass grave.

I wish Bush had told the world he went to a meeting with Iraq's democratically elected leader, outside the protection of a U.S. military installation, and the worst thing that happened was a shoe flew by his head.

I wish Bush had pointed out that the journalist who threw that shoe was only there because the Iraqi government now allows a free and uncensored media to cover the details of what agreements its government enters into and with whom.

I wish Bush had said a lot of things about what is going on in Iraq. But I doubt Ms. Mitchell ever would have heard the president's words if he had said those things. Because, as she admits, all she reads in newspapers are reports of death and despair.

I'd like to tell Ms. Mitchell that while she is reading about the evils in Iraq, a half a world away, our day is coming to a close. A day in which I will have seen Iraqi children running off to school with SpongeBob backpacks and a desire to learn. I will have driven past hospitals that treat Iraqis on the basis of the severity of their illness, not on a connection to Hussein or the Baath Party. A day in which I will have spoken with hundreds of prisoners, not one who will claim to have been tortured by the police or had their confession coerced. And most of all, a day in which I will have spoken to numerous Iraqi citizens proud of what Iraq has become, content to be free from the yoke of oppression and excited by the prospects of an open and democratic future.

Daniel R. Humble
Milwaukee
Civilian Rule of Law Adviser
Provincial Reconstruction Team
Forward Operating Base Warhorse
Diyala Province, Iraq