Bent Corner

Roscoe Bartlett
2412 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C.
20515-2006
Dear Roscoe Bartlett –

I’m writing this letter in regards to comments you made shortly after your historic vote last March against the continued funding of our troops in Iraq.

You stated that you were against a time table for withdrawal. Wouldn’t you agree that our military has already accomplished everything they were asked to do? They have:

• Ensured that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction.
• Removed Saddam Hussein from power.
• Allowed Iraq to become a democratic and free country.

Our troops have successfully done their job. Now it’s time for you to do yours. You need to work towards bringing them home. Their mission has been accomplished.

You stated back in March that another reason you voted NO was because one-fifth of the spending bill was pork. Expenditures unrelated to our national defense. As though the continued occupation of Iraq has anything to do with the defense of our nation. Now that the Democrats have caved and removed any type of timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, voting YES on the supplemental spending bill should be fairly easy for you to do - unless you really are a fiscal conservative. All that pork is still firmly attached to the bill.

Rick Rottman

Hagerstown, Maryland

Vice President Dick Cheney repeated his kooky assertions that al-Qaida was somehow linked to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq before the United States invaded:

Cheney contended that al-Qaida was operating in Iraq before the March 2003 invasion led by U.S. forces and that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was leading the Iraqi branch of al-Qaida. Others in al-Qaida planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the al-Qaida operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June,” Cheney told radio host Rush Limbaugh during an interview. “As I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq.

Granted, he said these things on The Rush Limbaugh Show. It’s not like you normally find a whole lot of truth on that particular radio program. It’s just that even Cheney has to realize that most people know he is lying when he says stuff like this. Even people that listen to Rush Limbaugh or watch Fox News.

What’s especially ironic about Cheney saying this yesterday was that yesterday the Pentagon released a recently declassified report that disputes the assertion that Saddam was in cahoots with al-Qaida.

Dick Cheney is such a silly goose. If he wasn’t such a warm and lovable soul, he would certainly face criticism from people who value the truth. People that are into facts. He tends to get a free pass on not telling the truth because he is so damn likable.

Iraq didn’t have an al-Qaida problem until George W. Bush invaded.

I was driving home from work today and decided to listen to Sean Hannity. I was listening to XM Radio and CNN was on yet another commercial break. I noticed immediately at Hannity was quite upset about something. The tone of his voice was even more shrill then normal. It seems there is a new weekly TV show on Fox News entitled “Hannity’s America”. Alessandra Stanley from the New York Times watched the show and then wrote about it.

Sean Hannity didn’t like the article. Go figure.

When I got home, I read the article. I thought Sean Hannity’s reaction to the article was funny. The actual article was hilarious.

Underneath the flag-waving swagger, Mr. Hannity’s show is riddled with leftist subliminal suggestion and degrading, un-American images of violence and pornography. Last Sunday Mr. Hannity toured the Bunny Ranch brothel in Nevada and stood over two prostitutes lolling on a bed in skimpy lingerie, their hands placed between their legs, and asked them if they believed in God.

The Bunny Ranch? You have to hand it to him for finding a way of incorporating prostitutes into his show. Who knew that Hannity’s America included prostitutes.

But it’s the sex and violence that suggest that Mr. Hannity harbors a secret plan to undermine American moral fiber. Despite President Bush’s assertion that the execution of Saddam Hussein was botched and disgraceful, Mr. Hannity repeatedly flashes some of the more gruesome video images of the hanging, pictures so ghoulish and unsettling that they could well be the fare for a snuff film.

First Hannity shows prostitutes rolling around a bed, then he shows the Saddam Hussein snuff film. I think to many Republicans, the crappy cell phone video of Saddam getting killed is a form of pornography. That strikes me as being quite off. Most Republicans worship Ronald Reagan and Reagan was really quite fond of old Saddam Hussein. May he not rest in peace.

Sean Hannity is a tool. He wraps himself in the American flag and dishes out disparaging comments about the patriotism of Americans that hold views different then his own. Americans like me. He does this not because it is what he really believes. No, he does it to make a buck.

Hannity’s fake patriotism has made him millions of dollars. He loves to chastise people like Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, and the Dixie Chicks because of their political views. The thing that separates these people (and others like them) from Sean Hannity is that they have never made a buck off their political views. Like he does. In fact the complete opposite is true. They often lose money because of their political opinions.

Just ask the Dixie Chicks.

Link

Holy smokes. They actually did it. Not that I’m surprised. I always knew once the invasion of Iraq started that, Saddam Hussein would end up dead.

Not that I feel even the smallest amount of sympathy for him. The guy was one of the biggest assholes of the 20th century. A century chalk full of raging assholes. Not only did he kill a massive amount of people over the years, he was an extreme troublemaker in a part of the world that didn’t need any more trouble. He waged an 8-year war against Iran. When saddled with huge debts because of the 8-year Iraq-Iran war, he decided to just invade Kuwait. This was one way of erasing the $14 billion he had borrowed from Kuwait to help finance the war with Iran. Being that the rest of the world enjoyed buying oil from Kuwait, many countries, including the United States had a huge problem with this. The United States put together a massive military invasion that we affectionately called OPERATION DESERT STORM.

It also resulted in a never ending, continuous American military presence in the region. Mainly in the country of Saudi Arabia. This was to ensure that Saddam Hussein didn’t continue to pose a threat to his oil rich neighbors.

The oil must flow.

The United States military presence also ensured Saddam didn’t kill anymore of his own people in the north and in the south of Iraq. Something that he was famous for doing.

One of the difficulties with permanently basing thousands of American troops in Saudi Arabia is that some Muslims had a real problem with this. Muslims that were real old-school serious about their Islamic faith. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of the Islamic faith. To some Muslims, basing American troops in the land of Mecca was more then a little sacrilegious. They felt as though it was desecrating the land of the Prophet Muhammad.

If only there was a way of knowing this. Remember, this was before the advent of Google or Ask Jeeves. It wasn’t as though somebody could have just “looked it up”.

One of these old-school serious Muslims to have a problem with American troops based in the birthplace of Islam was some really tall prick named Usama bin Laden.

In fact, he was so unhappy with American troops being in Saudi Arabia that bin Laden directed his people to commit the worst terror attack in history against the United States. Something we now refer to as 9-11.

Though it’s more then a little morbid, I have no problem waking up this morning to find out there is one less asshole in the world.

I guess it always does happen in threes. James Brown, Gerald Ford, and Saddam Hussein.

What a surprise. Saddam was found guilty. I never saw this coming. I realize that the United States had total control over this trial. It’s just that everything else the Bush administration has tried to do in Iraq has been a total failure. Why should the show trial of Saddam be any different?

Saddam was charged with a crime that doesn’t even exist in the Iraqi law. That is why deposed leaders are tried in international courts governed by international law when they commit crimes against humanity. They are never tried in their own countries.

I’m sure things in Iraq will settle down now that their deposed leader has been sentenced to death. If not now, surely when they finally lynch Saddam from a tall tree. I wonder if senator George Allen still has that lynching rope he use to display in his office. I realize it was was only a racist prop. That doesn’t mean it cannot be used to help spread democracy.

I have not been this surprised with a verdict since OJ Simpson was found liable for the wrongful death of Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown in civil court.

Iraqi tribunal sentences Saddam to hang [Yahoo News]