To the editor:

I called Congressman Rick Larsen’s office in Washington, D.C. to encourage him to vote to stop the funding of the illegal slaughter in Iraq.

I spoke to an aide in an attempt to find out why he continues to insist that funding this war is a good idea when a majority of his constituents want out of Iraq. The aide told me that “Congressman Larsen disagrees with you.”

I replied with “So what you’re telling me is that Mr. Larsen doesn’t represent a majority of his constituents. It sounds like he agrees with Dick Cheney, when confronted with the same will of the people he famously said, ‘So!’”

Larsen’s aide quickly got defensive and said that “this was parsing the issue.” I could tell that the conversation was over when the aide said, “Thank you for calling with your concerns” and hung up.

I will qualify that Larsen voted against the war to begin with but has been steadfast in his voting for the continued funding of this atrocity since then. I think Congressman Larsen equates military jobs with the funding, which is very unfortunate for the victims of such employment, both American and the “enemy.”

This funding enables these jobs to maintain the largest humanitarian crisis in the world today; bigger than the genocide in Darfur. Most of the “enemy” are women and children being killed and injured by armaments dropped from the air.

Does this sound like America to you citizens?

Not to me.

Dan Freeman

Clinton