Velma Berger – 4/25/07

This page was last updated on April 26, 2007.

This is improvement?; Velma Berger; Beaver County Times; April 25, 2007.

This is the latest in a series of at least 19 Bush and Iraqi-bashing letters written by Ms. Berger dating back to February 2005. In one letter, Ms. Berger told us she was proud of John Murtha.

Below is a detailed critique of the letter.

“Recently, the Iraqi people celebrated the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad and the removal of the statue of Saddam Hussein.

“They staged protests in the streets in numbers of tens of thousands. They also burned and stomped on the American flag.”

[RWC] Other than the numbers, how is that different than the recent demonstrations in Oregon? If you recall, some of Ms. Berger’s fellow travelers burned the U.S. flag and even hung/burned a U.S. soldier in effigy.

“Does this sound like things are improving in Iraqi [sic]? How many times do we have to secure Baghdad?”

[RWC] We never did secure Baghdad.

“Some of the Iraqi people even say they were better off under Saddam and want the American troops out. This is what our service men and women face daily. They can’t be sure who the enemy is.”

[RWC] “Some of the Iraqi people even say they were better off under Saddam?” No kidding! They are the Sunni and they received preferential treatment under Saddam Hussein because they were his people. Is this news to Ms. Berger?

“We found and removed the evil dictator. What we didn’t find were weapons of mass destruction. That was the time to bring our troops home and let the Iraqi people fight their own civil war.”

[RWC] Did Ms. Berger learn nothing from Afghanistan?

“Now four years later with more than 3,300 troops killed, this war president wants to send more troops to Iraqi [sic], some for the second time.”

[RWC] Earth to Ms. Berger. A lot of our troops have been there two or more times. No one wants that, but that’s one of the bad things about war.

“Our wounded troops are returning home only to find a long wait for medical care and benefits. They deserve more than this.”

[RWC] I haven’t heard our troops getting home “find a long wait for medical care and benefits.” It’s too bad Ms. Berger didn’t cite her info source.

“We who care [sic] and support the troops say bring them home now.”

[RWC] I don’t believe for one second Ms. Berger “care[s for] and support[s] the troops.” For folks like Ms. Berger, I believe her position is driven solely by politics.

If a Democrat were in office under the same circumstances, I don’t believe we’d see these letters from Ms. Berger. For example, not once in the aforementioned letters has Ms. Berger pushed for the removal of troops from Kosovo. It couldn’t be because a Democrat president made that decision, could it? Did Ms. Berger write letters opposing their deployment?