Passions on both sides of the war at Meehan forum (Lifelong Pub now Dem)

Passions on both sides of the war at Meehan forum
By JESSICA WILSON, Sun Correspondent

CONCORD -- Marine Sgt. Donald Boulette recently returned from deployment in Fallujah. He knows loss.

Of the more than 2,100 troops that have died in Iraq to date, “some of them are my friends,” said Boulette, of Lowell. “I would love them to come home tomorrow, but if it meant I had to pack my bags and go (to Iraq) tomorrow, I'd do it.”

More than 100 area residents, many of them veterans, crowded into a standing-room-only “town meeting” on the Iraq war hosted by U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan yesterday. The forum, titled “Working to Bring Our Troops Home,” drew war backers and opponents to Concord Middle School's Peabody Building. But a keen support for the troops ran through every comment.

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Bush's recently announced “Strategy for Victory” in Iraq is just the latest addition to a failed foreign policy, he said. Meehan quoted polls stating 80 percent of Iraqi citizens view U.S. troops as occupiers, saying this has boosted the strength of the insurgents in Iraq.

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Michael Barach of Carlisle drew a round of applause from the crowd when he announced, “I've been a lifelong Republican, but after Bush screwing up the budget and creating a tremendous deficit, I'm a Democrat.”

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