To the editor:

Rep. Dennis Moore, Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, I’m willing to listen to your arguments for staying in Iraq. All evidence points to only one rational explanation. It is OK, you can stop winking and nudging and say oil.

Though you’d never know it by paying attention to mainstream news, even official U.S. policy acknowledges oil’s overwhelming importance in maintaining our position in the world. We are not stealing the oil, but protecting access to it.

But, sirs, the Iraqis know about oil’s vital importance to our country, and they’re not really happy about it. According to a law being pushed around the U.S.-manipulated Iraqi parliament, the only stealing going on would be the four or five oil companies who stand to gain 70 percent of all future oil profits until development expenses were amortized.

Please don’t insult the intelligence of your constituency anymore by dropping al-Qaida’s name. It’s been well studied; even retired Gen. McCaffrey’s recent study acknowledged that al-Qaida’s appearance in the violence is very small compared to the violence going on between Iraqi nationalists defending their country against occupying forces. The “civil war” is between those who support the U.S. occupation and those against it. The idea that if we leave Iraq we’ll be more vulnerable at home is absurd. If we were that vulnerable you’d ask us civilians to make sacrifices.

Please come clean about the real negative repercussions (for a few) of withdrawal?

Creed Shepard,

Lawrence