Thursday, June 28, 2007

Senator Luger's Speech -- A Change of Course in Iraq

Read the press release from the Senator's office with his speech.

I just wanted to add my voice to what I hope is a massive outpouring of support for Senator Luger's approach. This nation needs a bipartisan approach to foreign policy, and leaders from both parties should work together at this junction to do what is best for the nation, not necessarily what is best for their individual parties.

The speech seems very well reasoned from a clear perception of the facts. Of the many people more expert than I on foreign policy who have written on U.S. policy in Iraq, Senator Luger in this speech seems among the most worthy of our attention.

I would only suggest that the U.S. responsibility to the Iraqi people needs to be recognized in our foreign policy. If one can believe Lancet, one of the world's foremost medical journals, some 675,000 people have died in Iraq unnecessarily after our invasion (more now, since the article was published some time ago.) It was earlier estimated that some 300,000 children had died in the 1990s as a result of the first Iraq war and the sanctions. Millions have had to leave their homes and seek refuge elsewhere in Iraq or abroad. The vast majority of those people constituted no threat to the people of the United States. I think that we owe the survivors something since their suffering was due to our (probably injudicious and disproportional) actions to protect ourselves.

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