Indiana GOP misrepresents plan for troop withdrawal

Robert Vane’s column (“President of the United States: Commander in Chief,” July 26) attacking Rep. Baron Hill’s stance on the Iraq war is unhelpful. After four years of a clearly failing and mismanaging the Iraq strategy, we need to be looking for a different approach to ending our engagement in this war. As a former Marine, and a long-standing Republican, I find Vane’s characterization of Hill’s views both unfair and dishonest. \nOther well-known left-wing “extremists” who have called for a change in strategy include Sen. Richard Lugar and Bill O’Reilly, to name just a couple. Are they pandering to the left wing? In fact, it is clear that the majority of the American people favor a change in strategy. Are they all extremists as well?\nIt’s time to be honest and empirical about the war and its effects on America and the world. Things are not going well and the well-advertised surge doesn’t seem to be helping. After four long years of fighting, a brief escalation of our military presence is not going to fix things. Throwing away the lives of our young troops on this charade is a betrayal of our military.\nMr. Vane has it backwards. Many Republicans in Congress would like to jump off the president’s leaky ship but are being held hostage by the Republican power structure. Richard Lugar, a Republican who is unafraid to state his opinion, and Baron Hill, a long-standing voice of moderate reason, have common cause on this very important issue. They are the ones who are supporting our troops by saying what almost everyone knows. It’s time for a change.