This is my letter to the President of the Iowa College Republicans who said some things in an interview recently that I found completely unfair. You can watch it here...

http://www.youtube.com/...

This is what I had to say to him...

Hi Benjamin. I am a college student at the Universtiy of Washington in Seattle. I don't know how I came across it but I saw a video of you on youtube talking to The Independent and I wanted to write you respectfully not to attack you, but because I disagree with you.

I could be wrong about this, but supposedly, one of the arguments for placing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on the State Department's list of Terrorist Organizations is so the USA can freeze their assets. Well, that's odd, because, if I understand the following story concerning the violent suppression of Myanmar activists, the Treasury Department evidently has the power to do that already:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/asia/28myanmar.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

I support the troops ... because I was one. I know who they are. I respect them. For the most part, "our troops" are young Americans, even some immigrants, who truly love this Country and don the uniform believing their effort and, potentially, their sacrifice is the price of freedom .... not only for themselves, but for the continued greatness of this Country that we love.

A repeated meme of the GOP House members, echoing a frequent Bush theme, has been that "we're fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here."  As a GOP memo outlined, their strategy is to avoid discussing whether any our objectives in Iraq are attainable.  They know they will lose, because every informed source including the recent NIE says those obje

According to the Boston Globe, Mitt Romney "...suggested sending five more brigades to Baghdad and an additional two regiments to the Al-Anbar province." Governor Romney seems to think that this will be enough to protect Iraqi civilians from terrorist attacks in those areas. He said, "Our military mission, for the first time, must include securing the civilian population from violence and terror."

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/01/romney_backs_bu.html

This illustrates just how poorly Governor Romney understands terrorist attacks. There is simply no way that a surge of that size can protect Iraqi civilians from terrorist attacks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09

"We should replay that interview as often as possible," chortled Republican strategist Nelson Warfield on Tuesday. "In this election there's been a lot of worry among Republicans about whether our base is motivated and is going to turn out to vote," Warfield said. "Nothing motivates the Republican base more than some puffy pontification from Bill Clinton. When he has a little fit on TV, it reminds us of the future that awaits if the Democrats should ever win another national election."

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They wouldn't try to blame Clinton for 9/11 just to piss him off? This guy is openly ringing pavlov's bell, so confident is he that his "base" is so well trained to hate Clinton (that's right, to HATE a U.S. President) that they will turn out to vote Republican no matter how utterly terrible the current Administration...the executive, the senate and the congress ... all Republican controlled for six years .... turn out to be.

Here again is another great speech by a DEMOCRAT on national security .

Have any of you noticed how much of Bushs' most senior cabinet members and MSMs most favorite GOP pundits on national security had engaged in an all-out media blitz this past week? (Gov Pataki, Guiliani, Ahhnold, Bloomberg, Chertoff, Torquemada and that Grizzly-looking character who gouged Valerie Plame). Hoping to capitalize on its sense of authority and readiness before Americans, they certainly projected an impression that they were on top of this emminent threat against our country.

After over a week of watching and waiting, I’ve thought long and hard about where this war will go, and I don‘t like what I am seeing. And for the first time I find myself in open disagreement with General Clark unless as I hope I have misunderstood his position on what Israel is doing. Though I know our General is the last person who would criticize citizens expressing dissent. But to tell the truth... Kofi Annan is right, the fighting has to stop.. right now. Personally I just don’t think the Israeli targeting system is as effective as many believe it to be.

Hezbollah has proven to be a far more effective organization than anyone had predicted. Israel’s attack is having the opposite effect it intended. Instead of weakening Hezbollah the Israeli’s have failed fundamentally to understand the methods and motivation’s of Hezbollah. The Israeli's air campaign by targeting Lebanese infrastructure is moving the Lebanese people and to some extent even the government into the sphere of Hezbollah.