What is Washboard Express?

Washboard Express is a way for me to express my own opinions, to be a provocative gadfly, by writing a "letter a day" to the President. I may miss a day here and there, because sometimes my family with be my first priority, but my goal is to write a total of 365 letters, representing one full year. To say I have opinions about most things would be to understate the obvious. Those of you that know me, know this is true, those who don't know me, will learn that it's true. The Washboard is a reference to going back to basics and "keeping it clean," so if you would like me to post your comments or opinions on this blog, I only ask that you be respectful. So go ahead, express yourself, and I look forward to an exchange of ideas and opinions.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Day 49...Dear Mr. President... Hugely Disappointed... Your Non-Drawdown is totally bogus, and here's why.


Day 49
Dear Mr. President,

My letter is a little late today because I wanted to hear your plan for troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. I had been hearing from various news sources that the withdrawal would be anywhere from 5000 by the end of the year to perhaps 30,000 by the end of 2012, and I was desperately hoping that those figures were wrong. That in fact they were disappointing low.

I wanted so badly for you to make a bold move and announce that you would bring home at least half of the existing force, as was championed by Vice President Biden.

To say I was disappointed is a gross understatement. When you came into office there were less than 35,000 troops in Afghanistan, and I wasn’t long after that, that those numbers quickly escalated to over 60,000, and after that you announced that a
“temporary surge” of 30,000 additional troops were needed if we were to stop al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

You have no idea how it saddens me to say that I think your announcement tonight was a non-announcement. Essentially what you are doing is absolutely nothing. This is simply unacceptable. When the 33,000 men and women are finally brought home there will still be twice the number of troops in Afghanistan than when you took office. How is that a drawdown?

I have fiercely defended your ideas, for your policies, your stance on DADT, the DREAM Act, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the bailout for the Auto Industry, the Unemployment extensions bill HR-4213, and countless others. It wasn’t hard to defend you on these issues even though the GOP fought long and hard against all of them. It wasn’t hard because you were right, and they were the right things to do. But the continuation of this war and your stance on Libya are DEAD WRONG and indefensible, and 72% of Americans agree that we should get out all together. 

You did the right thing by hunting down and eliminating Bin Laden, he was still our biggest threat, but that is no longer the case, and you can no longer justify the continuation of this war. It is now my fervent hope that Congress votes to defund these costly and vicious wars… enough is enough.

I understand that you are resolute in your beliefs, but just today one of your senior officials said that al-Qaeda in Afghanistan is no long a threat to the United States. You can’t have it both ways, and you can’t keep our troops there just ‘in case’ there is some sort of action in Pakistan.

If you plan on winning a second term as our President, and don’t wish to go into the history books being recognized for only being the ‘first African American President,’ then you had better start working on re-building the American Economy, American Jobs, and saving American lives by ENDING these WARS!

Disappointedly, but Respectfully Yours,

Your Gadfly Granny
Marcia Reimers

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