My letter to Reid about Pete Starks (D) slander of our troops

Update: Nancy Pelosi has belatedly joined me in criticizing the tone of Stark's comments. Why won't Reid?:

Taking a cue from Senator Reid, who wrote a letter with false claims to attack Rush Limbaugh, and stealing the idea from another internet commenter, I wrote the following letter to Senator Reid regarding the disgusting statements of Pete Stark, who accused our soldier of blowing up innocent people, and our President of sending children to Iraq to get their heads blown off "for his pleasure".

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Honorable Majority Leader Reid,

You may recognize the form of this letter.

At the time I send this letter, over 3,808 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq, and over 28,000 have been wounded. 160,000 others awoke this morning on foreign sand, far from home, to face the danger and uncertainty of another day at war.

Although Americans of goodwill debate the merits of this war, we can all agree that those who serve with such great courage deserve our deepest respect and gratitude.

That is why Pete Starks’s recent characterization of troops as “blowing up innocent people” is such an outrage. Our troops are fighting and dying to bring to others the freedoms that many take for granted. It is unconscionable that Mr. Stark would say that our troops are "blowing up innocent people".

Mr. Stark has made outrageous remarks before, but this affront to our soldiers is beyond the pale. The military, like any community within the United States, includes members both for and against the war. Senior generals, such as General John Batiste and Paul Eaton, have come out against the war while others have publicly supported it.

A December 2006 poll conducted by the Military Times found just 13 percent of service members approved of the Democrats plan to surrender and pull out of Iraq, while almost half actually wanted to increase the number of troops in Iraq, an approach President Bush took for our country that has turned things agound.

From this support by our troops for more troops, it is clear that Mr. Starks’s insult is directed at thousands of American service members. Active and retired members of our armed forces have a unique perspective on the war and offer a valuable contribution to our national debate, and don't deserve to be accused of blowing up innocent people.

Thousands of active troops and veterans were subjected to Mr. Stark’s unpatriotic and indefensible comments. We trust you will agree that not a single one of our sons, daughters, neighbors and friends serving overseas is "blowing up innocent people”.

We call on you to publicly repudiate these comments that call into question their service and sacrifice and to ask Mr. Stark to apologize for his comments.

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I'm not expecting a response. The Democrats obviously were expressing PHONY outrage about attacks on our troops.

After all, The Democrats still haven't called on Murtha to apologize for falsely saying our troops killed innocent people in cold blood, or apologized for supporting the organization that gave a platform for Jesse MacBeth to falsely accuse our soldiers of killing women and children, or forced Kerry to apologize for claiming our troops were running around in the middle of the night breaking down doors and terrorizing innocent Iraqi citizens.