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Some of you might enjoy this letter about the pro-war/anti-war divide in the GOP. This is pretty relevant to this thread and to the upcoming Texas straw poll.

[Editor's note: Margie Raborn & her husband Robert reside near Columbus, Texas and have been active in Texas politics for over 20 years. The following letter is republished from The Texas Insider with her permission. Her thoughts are well worth considering, and she welcomes your comments.]
by Margie Raborn
Cathie Adams stated in her July 1st Texas Eagle Forum e-mail, "It is my firm conviction that no presidential candidate in '08 can claim to support our troops, but NOT support their mission." Such a statement is not only an affront to presidential candidate Ron Paul, who claims this as his position, but to all of us who DO support the troops, but do NOT support this war.
Mrs. Adams has earned the respect of many Texas citizens and has considerable influence in Republican politics. However, such a pronouncement seemed to me to be a very deceitful and unjust slap against Congressman Paul, who warned against going into Iraq and continues to oppose the mission in Iraq. He promises to bring our troops home, as quickly as possible, and use them to protect our own borders and to defend our national sovereignty.
Congressman Paul has an impeccable record on national defense, which is one of the Constitutional duties of the Congress, as well as, an impeccable record of support for helping our returning veterans. While Mrs. Adams may unequivocally state that you can't support the troops without supporting the war, it appears that many of our military personnel do not agree with her. Congressman Paul has had more campaign contributions from the military than any other presidential candidate.
According to Mrs. Adams, support for the troops and support for the mission in Iraq are one and the same. If she believes that a presidential candidate cannot support one without supporting the other, then it appears she would be equally convinced that an individual cannot support the troops, unless they likewise support the war in Iraq. This seems to be a preposterous conclusion.
I am offended by such an accusation as this, on a very personal level.
Margie Raborn, Columbus, TX

Some of us longtime RP supporters were very much in support of our troops and very much opposed to the Xlinton action under the U.N. banner in Kosovo/Serbia/Croatia. Especially in supporting resistance to placing American troops under an incompetent foreign commander under the U.N.! And we were correct. This was in fact the uniform position here at FR in the pre-Bush era. I'll point out that both Bush and McStain vocally and publicly supported Xlinton's ill-begotten ~~nation-building~~ nation-destroying anti-Christian (literally) crusade in the Balkans, a continuing disaster.

Many of us remain hard opponents of nation-building exercises, playing global policeman, the vast expansions in foreign aid we've had, funds we've dispensed to the Third World with money we printed by deflating our currency or just borrowed from China.