Iraq

Sniffle, sniffle. My brother, Brian is off to Iraq today. He is going to protect the family and country that he loves. He is on his way to do something he greatly believes in. Whether or not you believe in the war, my other brother who spent 8 months in Iraq a while back had a different view than the media. Brandon said the locals were grateful for what America had done. They were happy to have more freedoms and excited about possibilities. Now Brian is off to defend those freedoms, which he deeply believes in. Here are a few words from his blog. *He uses a few rough words so please grant him grace as he is about to embark on a dangerous and passionate journey* I was not able to get permission from him since he is on a plane to over there. I thought what he had to say was VERY IMPORTANT so I wanted to share with you.

"Dear Friends and Family, I'm finally off to do what I've been dying to do for some time now (going to Iraq). And while the mathematical chance, coupled with my own juvenile sense of invincibility, requires that I can say with full confidence that nothing major will happen to me, I have been moved to leave behind the following thoughts. Some may be original, some rehashed, and most you have heard me rant about before, but I hope I can express them all as directly as possible. This is me at the age of 26, always learning, always changing, always growing.

On the Iraq war: Do I need to address WMD's? Are people still complaining that they didn't have any? Thank God for us they didn't. Three reasons we had every right and obligation to invade Iraq: 1) Saddam kicked out the weapons inspectors, whose mere presence was a condition for us not invading in '91. The day he kicked them out (especially after playing cat-and-mouse with them for years) we had a right to pick up where we left off. 2) They were shooting SAMs (surface-to-air-missiles) at our jets on an almost daily basis. I'm talking about the jets that were patrolling the northern and southern no-fly zones, that was also an agreed upon condition for us hitting the brakes in '91. Every single SAM fired was an act of war and if any other country in the world tried pulling that nonsense, we would mess them up! 3) Saddam was an evil dictator that brutalized his people and allowed them virtually no freedoms. The last Red Cross estimate I saw for the body count of people pulled out of mass graves was 300,000. A few years ago, I knew it'd only be a matter of time before I heard some nut actually defend that 'man', saying something like, "Yeah, but at least he kept the peace and we can't even do that!" And sure enough, I've heard that twice from a couple far-lefters in the last year. He kept his people down, that's for sure, and giving them freedom at first was like giving two angry pit bulls freedom after being caged side by side for years. But do any of you anti-war, anti-Bush people have any idea how historically huge it is for them to even have the right to vote? Our forefathers didn't necessarily fight for their own right to vote, but they fought more for all the generations after them to have that right. We are setting these people free! Thank God things are turning around over there now, and I think twenty years from now we'll mostly all agree that it was the right thing to do. The middle-east is basically the a**hole of the world, clinging on to the middle ages, but maybe one day Iraq will be the one country to realize that freedom is awesome and killing people because of their religion, or sexual preference, or doing "honor killings" to women is not cool. A few small countries aside, most of them hate us for loving freedom. This isn't even an "I'm right and you're wrong" thing because we say everyone can choose what they think is right or wrong, and then go out and choose your leaders accordingly. Even when the Palestinians elected Hamas as their governing body, we respected their right to vote and choose who they want to lead. (Stupid as they are for doing that)."


Brian is a very smart man and has some wisdom when he decides to share. I wonder what your response will be. Brian, I love you and will be praying my heart out for you and your safety!