“Get out of Iraq!”

It’s the mantra of the left and seems to be picking up steam. I have to confess, it’s down in the depths of my heart too. Let’s get our troops home. I want this war over for several reasons:

I don’t like my soldiers being in harm’s way. I’ve heard the cutesy clichés such as “It’s more dangerous on a US interstate than in Iraq” or “More Americans die per capita by murder in our cities than soldiers die in Iraq” or some other semantically contrived comparison. But bottom line, we don’t intentionally subject our citizens to this harm. The longer our soldiers are in Iraq, the greater a chance of violence being done to Americans.

I don’t like them being away from their families. Kids have to go to bed without a dad or go off to school without a mom and spouses have to carry the load of civilian life…of family life, alone. This is one of the worst consequences of the war. American families are broken up because someone is overseas.

I don’t like my government spending millions and millions of dollars on wartime costs. The costs, whenever I see them from time to time in an obscure report, are mind-boggling.

But there’s something I don’t like that tops of all those. I don’t like my homeland being attacked. I don’t like innocent civilians living within the United States of America in fear. I don’t like 3,000 Americans being obliterated in one day. I don’t like children being vulnerable. And that’s what our President and so many others in America don’t like either. That’s why we took the war to them. Terrorists have declared war on America. We will fight them here or we will fight them where they live. I prefer the latter.

We must support this war. Only united support by Americans can hasten the war’s end. Bringing our troops home is one thing. Finishing the job that must be finished is quite another.