Dear Congresswoman Slaughter,

In response to the legislation you have voted for – the entire purpose of my chiding correspondence, dear Congresswoman! – there were 14 Democrats who voted NO on H.R. 1591. I’m sure you can most easily find out who, but I thought I’d list them in the good cause, as you said in your kind letter, to ‘continue to work with like-minded colleagues to withdraw US troops as early as possible.’

They were, as follows: Dennis Kucinich [OH], John Barrow [GA], Dan Boren [OK], Lincoln Davis [TN], Barbara Lee [CA], John Lewis [GA], Jim Marshall [GA], Jim Matheson [UT], Michael McNulty [NY], Michael Michaud [ME], Gene Taylor [MS], Maxine Waters [CA], Diane Watson [CA], and Lynn Woolsey [CA].

I bet they’re all very kind and easy to be friends with!

This bill had more pork than Miss Piggy, it allowed a possible military strike against Iran and it wasn’t strong enough for this Administration and got the veto. What’s the next bill you’ll give them that allows everything to continue as is?, all the while hoping hoping hoping that some bright day Iraq won’t be the shame to each U.S. citizen that it is?

The same point is true of H.R. 2956, which got the veto by President Bush. You claim the President will ‘oppose all efforts to bring our involvement in Iraq to a responsible end.’ So why offer him a bill that allows him to continue the war as long as he likes and gives him the money to do it? There’s wicked irony and satire here but this stuff is sometimes too depressing for me to summon the joke. Do forgive me, kind Congresswoman.

I would like to extend my hearty and vociferous laudations for your support of H.R. 2929. It is great and worthwhile to ban permanent bases in Iraq. So when do you think the U.S. will leave the enormous empire of wealth and power in the hands of the Iraqis, all open eyed and no crossed fingers or giggling? Oh, but we dream….

I did also want to respond to your statement that ‘It has been clear for some time that we are not winning in Iraq.’ Who is winning? Osama bin Laden? Ali al-Sistani? The millions of Iraqi dead and wounded, the millions of refugees?

To vote for H.R. 1591 and H.R. 2956 is to support the war by funding it. You cannot use your having voted for them, your voting YES, as evidence that you want ‘our military involvement in Iraq to end.’ Again, I’ll allow your own – or whatever recycling bin this letter finds itself in – imagination to run away with the satire here.

Thank you for your correspondence and I look forward to communicating with you in the future.

Stop funding this war.

Sincerely,

Joel Chaffee
Member of Constituency