Another Republican speaks out

If you want to hear the fiery rhetoric of a crusading, anti-war true believer, call in a Republican. That's right. And a heartlander from Illinois.

When former Rep. Paul Findley openly broke with Bush over his Iraqi war policy, he didn't leave any asterisks in the text or wriggle room in the position.

"I believe President George W. Bush's decision to initiate war in Iraq will be the greatest and most costly blunder in American history," Findley wrote in a recent paper prepared for the Council for the National Interest, a Washington organization advocating a new direction for U.S. Middle East policy. "He has set Amerca on the wrong course."

Findley's quarrel is with the policy of this administration, not just intelligence.

At 82, retired from Congress for two decades, he was never the type who took on presidents of his own party. Though controversial, he was so loyal that he even defended Richard M. Nixon. Although he eventually voted for the impeachment of Nixon, he preferred censure.

But Findley said he is "fully prepared" to join in urging Bush's defeat this fall unless there is a change in Bush's policy in the Middle East.

...There has already been "grave damage" to the United States, he warned, and there would be "still greater harm if Bush continues his present course during a second term in the White House."

...Findley, in a telephone interview last week, said he could no longer be silent about what he considers to be a neoconservative, as well as a fundamentalist religious, takeover of the Bush administration.

Bush "seems oblivious to war's horror," Findley wrote in his recent paper. "The rockets and 1-ton bombs may kill a few Iraqi guerrillas and cause others to pull back and pause, but they kill and maim innocent civilians, level homes, turn neighborhoods into rubble and permanently blight many lives. They create deep-seated outrage, not cooperation."

...Findley said he knows of "many" other Republicans ready to urge Bush's defeat.

There is not any serious opposition to the president in the Republican primaries, however. That makes no difference to Findley, who hasn't been afraid in his long life as a sailor, weekly newspaper editor, congressman and author to stand alone in unpopular causes.  Times Dispatch article

Thank you Mr. Findley.