Once again the elected officials of this country – people I consider to be cowards – have chosen to appease and surrender to this nation’s enemies in the Middle East. People in the Iraq Study Group went to Iraq for four days, where they hid in the Green Zone, a heavily guarded area in Baghdad, with only one person having the courage to step into the danger area to look around. Only one.

And now they come home claiming to be the experts on Iraq, and knowing what is needed to end the war. Their answer was to appease our nation’s enemies in Iran and Syria, and surrender all that has been accomplished in Iraq. The American and Iraqi deaths for freedom and democracy would be for nothing.

Those officials have once again embarrassed and shamed my country, have once again turned their backs on our fighting men and women who are there willingly to fight for freedom and ensure that 9/11 does not repeat itself.

A great man once said that “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”

Michael Goodwin, Lewiston