Since delivering the on-the-whole-not-particularly-well-received but necessary and just Iraq report to the country’s most learned and august gathering of minds (I speak of our Congress) the my mailbox has overflowed with the peoples’ responses. This mail has been of diverse character and quality. Apparently, few people were listening to a single word I or Ambassador Crocker uttered. Which is sad, because we worked like dogs to get it ready on time. Here’s a potpourri of public feedback:

LETTER 1:

General ‘Buh-tray-us,’ you have the power to recommend an immediate and full withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. War is evil. If you gave the order tomorrow, a month later all the soldiers could be back in America. No more Americans should die fighting in a foreign land where they’re not wanted. Staying two or three more years isn’t going to make any difference ‘cause that place is going to be a horrible civil war no matter what we do! That’s what my homeroom teacher said a couple days ago and boy was she right. You’re ignoring the lessons of history so you’re doomed!

Tyrant!
Mandy Peters, City High School ‘10

P.S. Release all the innocents from the concentration camps in GITMO. We’re not NAZIs! Innocent people shouldn’t be kept in cages! Tyrant!

LETTER 2:

Hey brother—keep on keeping on.

Much Love,
Obama

LETTER 3:

My son PV2 James Faddon III got a punishment for being drunk on duty so he couldn’t come home on leave on Christmas. Can you give him a pardon so he can see his old mother. The boy don’t mean no harm he’s just a dumb kid. He is in the 1st Cavalry. I served with the 1st Cavalry in Vietnam and I was drunk all the time, I don’t see why it’s a crime now.

Respectfully,
James Faddon, Sr., PFC (ret.) USARMY

LETTER 4:

“WTF Dave!!! What happened to “you demand more troops, I pin the fifth star?” We had a deal—and nobody welshes on G.W. Nobody.”

“Not” President G. W. Bush

Good thing Petraeus decided against the original idea of “Everyone Shut the Fuck Up and Stop Whining.” One can only imagine what kind of reaction that would have provoked.