Middle East must fight for freedom

We find ourselves at a precipice again with the Middle East. Have we not spent enough American blood and treasure? I believe we have. Hundreds of Christian children have been killed in Egypt and Iraq in the last year. What did we do? Nothing. This is about saving face, and that is it.

I am white, a veteran, married man, father and small-business owner. I am a conservative, pro-life, pro-choice when it comes to education, a man who will give a hand out, but also teach you how to fish.

I pay my taxes and complain about it. I believe that America is good even though we have done some bad things. I stand with the Founding Fathers and believe that all men are created equal and should be treated that way. I believe what Martin Luther King said - judge by the content of our character and not the color of our skin or religion.

Most of all, I believe in America. We don't need to be changed fundamentally, we need to be tweaked. Look at our greatest generation, from World War II. What they did we can never pay back; what we can is learn that freedom is not free. We need to understand that for the Middle East to understand freedom, they must pay for it themselves, fight and toil as we did to have it.

When we don't know what the clear objective is, we should step back and take pause.

Jeff Beisker

Cedar Rapids