Dear Rep. Chocola:

We hope that you and your family are well. Fortunately we are too, though we remain distressed at the dichotomy between the "culture of life" words of Mr. Bush and of yourself and the official actions of our government.

Another week has passed and another week of killing has occurred in Iraq. There are now over l600 US deaths, with about 9 times that number of US wounded, and twice that number of Iraqi soldiers killed. No one seems to have a good number for the number of civilians who have been killed and injured. There is a number of about l7,000 minimum and l9,500 maximum on the www.iraqbodycount.org website. Other estimates go far higher and all include what you must call "innocents". We have attached the US soldiers' weekly death report and we feel its message deeply.

What kind of a country are we? What kind do we wish to be? How we spend our money is significant. Congress including you just approved another 81.5 billion for the war in Iraq. Very little of that is going for schools, roads, hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan……and I suspect what does will not make up for those that were destroyed.

Meanwhile we begrudge less than 20 billion annually in foreign aid money, much of which goes to support the infrastructure of foreign aid as opposed to actual aid to people.. This is far below the 0.7% of GNP that the US has reportedly pledged to give for development assistance, according to TIME magazine (March l4 edition). What kind of a country do we wish to be?

Our citizens and our soldiers want to share. We see that in daily reports from Iraq and in the many reports of citizen volunteerism. What is lacking? What we lack is the leadership that gives more than lip service to a culture of life. What we see in the Bush administration is a death culture. We hope that you will re-consider your role in the Bush party and work to bring its "culture of life" words and its actions closer together.

Sincerely yours,

Ellyn Stecker and Peter Smith for the Michiana Peace and Justice Coalition