Dear Ms. Bachmann,
How are you? I am fine. I saw you on the news this morning, talking to Bob Schieffer. Your hair looked very nice. You said some things, though, that made me worried. You said that Barack Obama failed the USA and Iraq by withdrawing all troops that were not attached to a diplomatic mission. This makes me think that a President Bachmann would have kept the troops there. This would be a huge mistake.

Iraq’s government refused to grant US forces immunity from prosecution. This would leave the US soldiers there wide open to all sorts of legal hassles. Even if our forces made no mistakes, locals could still sue the deep pockets of the USA whenever they felt lucky. Should a soldier make a mistake, he or she would be fully liable for damages. That is bad because it is not good. If you kept soldiers there, Ms. Bachmann, you would put them all in legal jeopardy.

It’s not like the soldiers are going that far away, either. Kuwait still keeps a huge US military presence in the region. Kuwait is next to Iraq. If we had to invade Iraq again, we could do it like we did the last time, and use the troops in Kuwait to do the job.

But then you criticized President Obama for getting the US involved in two more conflicts, so that got me confused. Do you want the US Army involved in foreign conflicts or don’t you? You criticized him for the US’ involvement in Libya, but that involvement is pretty much over. There’s no need to prop up Qaddafi now that he’s dead. The other involvement sent 100 troops into Uganda to help end a reign of terror imposed by the Lord’s Resistance Army, which does horrible things.

As a side note, I find it extremely ironic that right-wing commentators questioned Romney’s Christianity but were quick to defend the Christian connections of the LRA, even though the LRA engaged in mass rape, dismemberments, and other atrocities. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever accused Mr. Romney of mass rape, dismemberment, or other atrocities, unless one considers provided broad-based health care to be an atrocity. But I digress.

Obama got the US involved in a war that is now over and another conflict in an advisory capacity. You complained that when the US troops leave Iraq that there would be fewer troops there than in Honduras. I want to know why you think it’s necessary to keep US troops in Honduras. You said that every time the US deposed a dictator, it left troops behind to keep a handle on things. Actually, Ms. Bachmann, the US troops helped to prop up a different dictator until he was able to establish his own death squads and other security apparatus like that. Iraq is trying to not have death squads, so maybe that’s for the best.

You also accused Iran of being ready to pounce on Iraq and snap it up. Iraq won’t let that happen. There are many reasons why the Iraqis, even though most of them are Shi’a, won’t agree to domination by Iran. Biggest among those reasons is that the Arabs of Iraq know that the Persians of Iran have a very hostile opinion of them.

Turkey won’t let it happen, either. They’re active in northern Iraq, fighting the Kurdish PKK there.

Besides, Ms. Bachmann, the war in Iraq pretty much did end about 3 years ago when the Sunni Iraqis decided to stop working with al-Qaeda. Since then, the violence in Iraq dropped by about 90%. Northern Mexico is now more dangerous than Iraq.

You also said we’re being kicked out by the people we liberated. Those people don’t see the US regime as a liberation. While Saddam Hussein was deposed, the subsequent occupation and the rules that went with it were hardly up to the standards of the good ol’ USA. At best, we were protecting Iraqis from their own nasty elements. The Iraqis will have to enact laws and agree to live in a civil, corruption-free society on their own in order to liberate themselves.

What really got me was when you demanded that the Iraqis reimburse the USA for the cost of the invasion and occupation. I suppose they would if they were in turn reimbursed for the hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties killed in US military actions. Or is that ingratitude?

Trying to understand your logic is really starting to make my head hurt. Maybe I should just stick to commenting about your hair, which really is nice. Who does it for you?

Also, one more thing: since there’s no way in the world you’ll win the nomination for the GOP’s presidential candidate, who do you endorse? Or are you going to do the “crazy” thing and stay in the race? Just curious.

Sincerely,

Dean Webb

Great article at Truthout about the rise of authoritarianism in the GOP. I called it a while back in this blog, and it’s good to see I’m not alone. The time has come when comparing the GOP to the Nazi party really is valid and not a sensationalist ploy in an argument over policy. It’s part of a sane debate.

In my religion, we have a book of scripture known as The Book of Mormon. In it, there’s an episode when the nation of the protagonists is under severe attack from without and a group of people that want to subvert the freedom and justice of the protagonists refuse to help in the struggle. They obstruct the government of the nation at every step of the way. The protagonists refer to them as “the King-men” and call them traitors to their nation because of their willingness to betray the freedoms of the land for their own benefit. They hate the poor and despise the needy, while proclaiming their own righteous superiority. More and more, this sounds like a description of the Republican party to me.

Yes, there’s rot in the Democrats, as well. But it’s not anywhere near as bad as what’s surfacing in the Republicans. The Democrats can mess up the economy and get us in a foreign policy jam. The Republicans are on a course to create a republican dictatorship. Their politics are ruinous and their ideology poisonous. I know I have friends that are in the GOP, and I know they’re good, principled people. The problem is that the top ranks of the party are shot through with madness, money-grubbing, and megalomania.