The first thing that struck me as odd during the Republican National Convention last week was a person holding a dark red sign that said “PEACE” with McCain-Palin 2008 under it. Peace? How does vowing to stay in the Iraqi war equate with peace? Our nation is in serious disrepair as we are more than $9 trillion in debt, and according to an August 8 CNN report, Iraq’s oil-fueled surplus is nearing $80 billion.

Yet we continue to spend billions each month on the war in Iraq because we are told they will follow us home. A line from the opponents who recommended voting no on the issue of redeploying US troops out of Iraq by March 2008 reads, “If we leave Iraq before the job is done, as surely as night follows day, the terrorists will follow us home.”

The very next line of this paragraph addresses Osama bin Laden’s hatred for the country and that he is determined to “destroy us and our way of life.” Since when did Osama bin Laden have anything to do with Iraq? Thank you, Republican senators, for instilling such great fear into our nation by using these scare tactics.

Yes, I agree that we should fear bin Laden. However, he is not related the Iraqi situation, so please do not use it as reasoning for putting our country in the economic slump in which we are currently stuck. Maybe if we directed our military efforts toward Afghanistan in the first place, we wouldn’t have to fear bin Laden anymore.