Washblog

Paul Richmond, Democratic Candidate for U.S. Congress
Washington’s 6th District
2023 East Sims Way, #263, Port Townsend, WA, 98368
Phone: (360) 379-5575, Fax: (360) 379-5116
www.richmond4congress.com

MEDIA RELASE, May 8, 2008

6tH District U.S. Congressional Candidate Paul Richmond calls on Incumbent Norm Dicks today to Vote against further funding for the Iraq War and Occupation.

Today the Congress is asked to allocate 162 Billion to continue the useless Iraq War and Occupation with no strings attached.  Estimates are now that the war will already cost us Six Trillion ($6,000,000,000,000) Dollars.  That does not include the more than thirty thousand (30,000) wounded veterans and their families.

The rank and file of the Democratic Party has been asking for us to leave Iraq
for many years.  At the 2004 National Convention the majority of the delegates wanted us out.  The Democrats won majorities in both houses in 2006 in large part because this war had gone on too long and people wanted us out.  At the local party’s conventions and platform meetings, it’s one of the main things people talk about.  The money that’s being wasted killing people there could be used to feed us here, educate us, give us medical care, end the repossession of our homes.  We can build an infrastructure that isn’t falling apart.  We can start whole new industries around fuel sources other than petroleum.  

The war and occupation  in Iraq has brought us more than 4,000 American dead and more than 30,000 Americans mortally wounded.  This last means tens of thousand of young Americans with parts of their bodies no longer working or parts of their bodies missing.  It means thousands of young Americans with parts of their skulls blown off trying to learn how to speak, trying to learn to walk, trying to learn to feed them selves again.  It means thousands of young Americans spending their lives around machines that help them breathe.  It means thousands of young Americans who need their relatives to help them with their catheters so that they can even urinate.  And as for the country we are supposedly trying to save, when you add in the number of refugees, wounded and dead, the number of Iraqi people whose lives have been utterly annihilated now far exceeds the number of people living in the 6th District and rivals the entire population of Washington State.

Enough is enough.  Congressman Dicks seems to have joined with others in acknowledging that his vote authorizing the war was a mistake.  It is time he corrects it and votes no today.  It is time he uses the political clout and takes a leadership role in ending this debacle, as his constituency asks.