I received the following email from my Congressman, Joe Sestak (D - PA), this morning in response to an email I had sent him thanking him for his work on Iraq.
Dear Mr. Stringer,
Thank you for contacting me to express your views about our current engagement in Iraq . I greatly appreciate your input, and I apologize for the delay in my reply.
As a Member of Congress, it is my responsibility to represent my constituents' concerns and interests and to provide them the honorable and enthusiastic service they deserve. I truly value your input and suggestions on issues before the House. In a representative government such as ours, it is essential that I know what your thoughts and views are on these issues.
As you may know, I firmly believe that Iraq is a tragic misadventure because it was never a clear and certainly not a present danger for our nation. We are now on the road to nowhere in Iraq , and our current policies are doing nothing but taking us farther down this path. We need to do the following things in order to extract ourselves from this situation:
Dear Mr. Stringer,
Thank you for contacting me to express your views about our current engagement in Iraq . I greatly appreciate your input, and I apologize for the delay in my reply.
As a Member of Congress, it is my responsibility to represent my constituents' concerns and interests and to provide them the honorable and enthusiastic service they deserve. I truly value your input and suggestions on issues before the House. In a representative government such as ours, it is essential that I know what your thoughts and views are on these issues.
As you may know, I firmly believe that Iraq is a tragic misadventure because it was never a clear and certainly not a present danger for our nation. We are now on the road to nowhere in Iraq , and our current policies are doing nothing but taking us farther down this path. We need to do the following things in order to extract ourselves from this situation:
1) Decrease the dependence of the Iraqis on us, both politically and militarily, so they are able to shoulder the burden of their own security when our troops are no longer present
2) Acknowledge and accept the evidence that increasing troops in Baghdad will not work. This is something we have tried time and again but which has failed to curtail the violence. The resolution to this civil war is dependent upon the political decisions that need to be made by Iraqi leaders to cease the sectarian violence - not on the number of troops we have in the country.
3) Finally, we must stop overextending our military. We have an army at home that is nearly broken because of the strain of multiple deployments to Iraq . Continuing a military engagement will further hinder our readiness, and divert attention and resources away from our global security concerns in North Korea , Iran , Afghanistan , the Western Pacific and the Middle East .
The bottom line is that we must set a deliberate timetable for the redeployment of our troops from Iraq . This plan to redeploy will serve as the catalyst for the Iraqis to accept responsibility for their country and will allow us to better address our strategic security interests throughout the rest of the world, as well as here at home. We must also have the confidence to work with Iran and Syria , as well as other regional nations, which have an interest in Iraq becoming stable as we redeploy our troops. They do not want to have millions of dislocated Iraqis overflow the border like two million already have nor do they want a proxy war between their majority Sunni and Shia populations if each side were then to support the different Iraqi Shia and Sunni factions causing the sectarian violence in that nation.
These are all steps that I have laid out in legislation that I have sponsored - H.R. 960, the "Enhancing America's Security by Redeployment from Iraq Act." This binding legislation sets the end of 2007 as the date certain for our redeployment from Iraq . The rationale for doing so is clear - only the Iraqis can bring about the needed reconciliation in their country. Their political leaders must take the difficult political steps needed to cease the violence, by building coalitions among competing sects, ensuring minority rights, balancing power between provincial and central governments, and sharing oil revenues among all regions in Iraq . We simply cannot do this work for them.
While the redeployment specified in my legislation will be carried out to enhance the global security interests of the United States and to improve our military readiness, it will not apply to: special operations forces assigned outside of Iraq that conduct targeted counter-terrorism operations or periodic support operations of the Iraqi security forces in Iraq; air forces assigned to locations outside of Iraq that conduct air operations over Iraq; or other military liaison teams that operate within Iraq.
In addition, H.R. 960 calls for the United States to take a leadership role in the diplomacy and negotiations necessary to bring regional nations together to ensure a stable Iraq . It also calls for the convening of an international conference of nations with the goal of providing economic aid for rebuilding Iraqi infrastructure and other reconstruction efforts that are key to its long-term stability.
The fact of the matter is that everyday we are in Iraq , our overall security goes down. Afghanistan is again prey to terrorists as the Taliban has begun to control the Southern Provinces. North Korea has exploded a nuclear device, Iran is bent upon developing one, and the Middle East is in a perpetual state of conflict - while we have failed to address the center of strategic gravity in the future-the Western Pacific, where China is emerging diplomatically, economically and in other areas.
We simply cannot afford to continue on our current course any longer. There is a better strategy - one that will better address our security interests both abroad and at home - and as your Member of Congress, I will work to ensure that it is implemented.
Again, I appreciate you taking the time to share your views on this matter of utmost importance to our nation's security. If I can be of any additional assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me again. If you would like to receive regular updates on these and other Congressional issues, please visit my website at http://www.house.gov/sestak to sign up for my e-newsletter. I look forward to our future correspondence.
Sincerely,
Joe Sestak
Member of Congress
This is vastly superior to all those years of "Crazy" Curt Weldon.
These are all steps that I have laid out in legislation that I have sponsored - H.R. 960, the "Enhancing America's Security by Redeployment from Iraq Act." This binding legislation sets the end of 2007 as the date certain for our redeployment from Iraq . The rationale for doing so is clear - only the Iraqis can bring about the needed reconciliation in their country. Their political leaders must take the difficult political steps needed to cease the violence, by building coalitions among competing sects, ensuring minority rights, balancing power between provincial and central governments, and sharing oil revenues among all regions in Iraq . We simply cannot do this work for them.
While the redeployment specified in my legislation will be carried out to enhance the global security interests of the United States and to improve our military readiness, it will not apply to: special operations forces assigned outside of Iraq that conduct targeted counter-terrorism operations or periodic support operations of the Iraqi security forces in Iraq; air forces assigned to locations outside of Iraq that conduct air operations over Iraq; or other military liaison teams that operate within Iraq.
In addition, H.R. 960 calls for the United States to take a leadership role in the diplomacy and negotiations necessary to bring regional nations together to ensure a stable Iraq . It also calls for the convening of an international conference of nations with the goal of providing economic aid for rebuilding Iraqi infrastructure and other reconstruction efforts that are key to its long-term stability.
The fact of the matter is that everyday we are in Iraq , our overall security goes down. Afghanistan is again prey to terrorists as the Taliban has begun to control the Southern Provinces. North Korea has exploded a nuclear device, Iran is bent upon developing one, and the Middle East is in a perpetual state of conflict - while we have failed to address the center of strategic gravity in the future-the Western Pacific, where China is emerging diplomatically, economically and in other areas.
We simply cannot afford to continue on our current course any longer. There is a better strategy - one that will better address our security interests both abroad and at home - and as your Member of Congress, I will work to ensure that it is implemented.
Again, I appreciate you taking the time to share your views on this matter of utmost importance to our nation's security. If I can be of any additional assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me again. If you would like to receive regular updates on these and other Congressional issues, please visit my website at http://www.house.gov/sestak to sign up for my e-newsletter. I look forward to our future correspondence.
Sincerely,
Joe Sestak
Member of Congress
This is vastly superior to all those years of "Crazy" Curt Weldon.
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