An Army Green Beret’s Open Letter to Glenn Beck On Iraq

Loren Schofield on The Awakening: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/holger-awakens/2014/07/01/the-awakening–an-open-letter-to-glenn-beck

Loren Schofield is a 16-year veteran with the Special Forces. He served in 10th SFG (A) on a Mountain Team, 3rd SFG (A) on Mobility Team, and in a Special Forces DA company. He retired as an instructor in the Special Forces Advanced Mountain Operations School. He deployed twice to Kosovo, the first time in 1999, eight days after the air war ended, and was there for his second trip during 9/11. Between April of 2002 to May of 2009 he deployed five times to Afghanistan and twice to Iraq. Loren started his Special Forces career as an 18E and in 2008 graduated the SF Intel Sgt’s Course and became an 18F. He is a graduate of SFARTAETC, SF Mountain School, Jumpmaster, and multiple civilian mountaineering-related schools.

Glenn Beck opened up his program on Tuesday talking about his views and opinions on Iraq.

“Glenn looked at the troubling news of the day in a slightly different light. Glenn remains steadfast in his belief that the United States government must bring our servicemen and women home and not put troops on the ground in Iraq. This morning, he went so far as to “lead with his mistakes” and admit that liberals had the right idea back in the early 2000s when they opposed intervention in the Middle East…”

He continued with how his views had changed:

“Maybe we could come together now on this nightmare in Iraq. From the beginning, most people on the left were against going into Iraq. I wasn’t. At the time I believed that the United States was under threat from Saddam Hussein. I really truly believed that Saddam Hussein was funding terrorists. We knew that. He was funding the terrorists in Hamas. We knew that he was giving money. We could track that. We knew he hated us. We knew that without a shadow of a doubt. It wasn’t much or a stretch to believe that he would fund a terror strike against us, especially since he would say that. So I took him at his word.”

There were also atrocities that were happening in Iraq torture chambers, mass graves. At the time, the unanimous belief – even with Hillary Clinton and everybody else – was that he had weapon of mass destruction. There was also the element – and this is really what spoke to me – of bringing freedom to the people of Iraq for the first time in their long history. I don’t want to control Iraq, but I have a soft spot for people who are being tortured and just want freedom because I really, truly believe Democrats and Republicans are the same. Israelis and Palestinians are the same. Once you get the politicians to leave the room, once you can deprogram people from what the politicians and leaders have said, everyone is pretty much the same. It’s like, ‘I just want to be left alone.’ ‘I just want to raise my family, have fun.’ ‘I want a decent life.’ Then politicians get involved and program us to hate each other. You have to be carefully taught who to hate.

Now, in spite of the things I felt at the time when we went into war, liberals said: We shouldn’t get involved. We shouldn’t nation-build. And there was no indication the people of Iraq had the will to be free. I thought that was insulting at the time. Everybody wants to be free. They said we couldn’t force freedom on people. Let me lead with my mistakes. You are right. Liberals, you were right. We shouldn’t have…”

“…But I agree with you: You cannot force democracy on the Iraqis or anybody else. It doesn’t work. They don’t understand it or even really want it. They may be too immersed in their own belief of Sharia Law to embrace liberty or at least at this time. If people vote for Sharia Law, they vote for Sharia Law. We tried. What can we do? We have lost thousands of American lives. We have lost thousands of lives on the Iraqi side and tens of thousands have been wounded. We have spent $2 trillion – say that again – $2 trillion, and upwards of 200,000 Iraqi citizens, aid workers, insurgents have been killed. That’s the conservative number. Liberals will tell you it’s almost 1 million people. I don’t know what the number is, but after all of that, hundreds of thousands of lives, $2 trillion, the best minds in the world trying to do it, it’s about to fall apart.

Terrorists of the most radical kind – maybe the most radical we have witnessed since Nazis – are now poised to overrun the capitol city. All of our effort, all our sacrifices, all of it is gone…”

He ranted on about conspiracies regarding the U.S. Embassy, then he made a few comments that got my blood boiling.

“…Not one more life. Not one more life. Not one more dollar, not one more airplane, not one more bullet, not one more Marine, not one more arm or leg or eye. Not one more.”

“…We don’t want our sacrifice to be a waste. Let me ask you this question: What good will one more life do? To waste one more life, what good will it do, to waste another dollar, let alone another trillion?”

He went on to call Dick Cheney and George Bush “…the Darth Vader of the entire galactic empire…” and talk about the moon landings.

My response: