It’s important to support troops, president

If you question our involvement in Iraq, consider the following reasons why we are there. It seems that some people are against our involvement based on their dislike for our president. I also believe some people don’t understand what is at stake. I do not blindly support everything our president does, but I do support our involvement in Iraq.

I have relatives serving in the military and my heart goes out to all families that have someone in the service and those who have lost loved ones in the war. In America, we place a very high value on life. We have also realized from our country’s history that some individuals will be asked to sacrifice their life to maintain our freedom.

Our president has been entrusted with the heavy burden of placing certain people in harm’s way, not the Congress. We can choose to stick our head in the sand like we did prior to either World War, or we can take on the threat early and hopefully halt the current global terrorist aggression that continues to grow. We must remain strong and allow the surge to work.

If we walk away from Iraq, now we would be fooling ourselves in the belief that the Muslim terrorists would leave us alone. Prior to World War II, our ambassador to England, Joe Kennedy, advised President Franklin D. Roosevelt to stay out of the war because he felt Adolf Hitler was a person we could work with.

If we had not joined in the war, we would have witnessed the loss of a free Europe, allowed the genocide to continue and the war would have spilled onto this continent. The list here shows the number of lives lost in the last four major wars that the United States was involved in. This is the real price paid for freedom. It is paid by our military and the account remains open.

Remember this list the next time you read about the number of military deaths in Iraq and think of how many will die if we allow terrorism to continue unchallenged.

In this war, as of this writing, we have lost 3,858 brave military personnel, an average of about 964 deaths per year over four years. This is a heavy weight on our hearts and we are truly saddened by their loss, but the sad fact is that we lose military personnel whether or not we are at war. Between 1980 and 2000, we lost an average of 1,665 brave military personnel each year during a time of “peace.” For this reason, the people who are in our military truly are heroes.

The press plays a big part in how the war is viewed. During World War II, civilians were killed here in the United States by Japanese incendiary bombs. The bombs were carried by high-altitude balloons, which fell on the West Coast. The press agreed not to report this for fear that the Japanese would send thousands more aloft on the trade winds, spreading panic and weakening support for the war. It would have made great copy, but the Japanese didn’t hear any reports, so they abandoned the project.

Unfortunately, the press today is very liberal and they report the negative side of the war, fueling a negative opinion. Many areas of Iraq are stabilized, but that is not reported.

What if we’d had live imbedded coverage during the D-Day invasion when more than 10,000 troops died in one day? Would America have wavered in its support for the war? If Ike and FDR had decided that on D-Day too many troops would die and the opinion polls would be against them, what would have happened? What if the death tolls in Europe and the Pacific were reported live every day? Would this have weakened our will to win the war and caused hesitation and indecision in our government? Would we be speaking German or Japanese now? After World War II, both Germany and Japan took years to achieve stability.

Decisions at this level are not taken lightly by this president or any president. People such as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid want to stop before the job in Iraq is done and they use the current death toll to destroy our will to fight.

It was also disgusting the way Gen. David Petraeus was disrespected by the grand-standing Democrats when he testified in congressional hearings on the results of the surge. If Democrats are sincere in their motives, why aren’t they asking for the return of the troops that President Bill Clinton sent to Kosovo? Maybe deep down, they realize that freedom does have a cost.

After World War II ended, we were busy fighting communism while an even darker threat was growing – Muslim terrorism. The terrorists believe that if you do not believe as they do, you must die. They believe that you, your children and your grandchildren must be wiped from the face of the earth. They want to destroy other religions whose beliefs are different from theirs. Christianity, on the other hand, teaches love, tolerance and compassion to all – even toward people who hate you. This is a core difference. They kill in the name of their god. They spread their war by fear, intimidation and by teaching hatred to their young.

The way to win a war, it has been said, is to “break your enemies’ will to fight.” They do this by bombing innocent children and our brave solders. They have beheaded people on television and they find allies in the people who ask us to lay down our guns and walk away. They continue trying to weaken our will to fight.

If we leave before the job is done, Iraq will become a breeding ground for terrorism with the help of Syria and Iran. Syria is the country that Ms. Pelosi chose to visit. Her actions were directly against U.S. policy and should be viewed as an act of treason. We are not fighting a formidable army with clear battle lines. This enemy hides in the shadows and behind women and children. The terrorists are trying to obtain nuclear and chemical weapons, which would be far worse than the Sept. 11 catastrophe.

Do you wonder why our allies Germany, France and Russia will not help in Iraq? They were trading technology for oil, which was against the U.N. sanctions.

As for weapons of mass destruction, some evidence was found and others may have been moved out before we invaded. We told them we were coming and the U.N. passed multiple resolutions to try to avoid a war. We gave Saddam every chance to back down. If he had allowed the U.N. to come in and inspect his program, a different solution might have been reached.

This is a part of a long-term battle over the very existence of our freedom. We are establishing military bases in the region and we are fighting them on their turf. Remember, they have already proven that they can hit us here.

People like Pelosi and Reid are helping the Muslim terrorists by defeating our will to win. Remember this quote from Osama bin Laden: “We love death and the U.S. loves life.” If you are a Bush basher, this probably will not change your mind. If you have doubts and concerns, I hope this will harden your resolve to see this war through.

If you disagree, you have the right to speak out, but remember if this country were run by Muslim extremists, you would not have that freedom. Our president is doing the job he was elected to do and, as he has said, this battle will continue for generations.

Support our troops and our president, because our way of life, yes, even our very lives, depend on it. Do not forget Sept. 11 and please ask God to bless America and our troops, while we still can.

Dave Zoglman is an Indian Land resident.