Hello!! The following is an article that ran in Flagpole (Athens, GA) this week in the Comment section.
DEAR PRESIDENT BUSH
Please accept my greetings and respects. Congratulations on your victory in November. I am writing you today to urge you to end the war. Please stop it now. Bring our citizen soldiers home! You have nothing to lose by doing it. The election is over. You have won. Bring our people home now!
I urge you, Mr. President: this is the time for us to declare victory in Iraq. This is the time for you to declare "Mission Accomplished." Truly it has been. Our most important foreign policy goals in Iraq have all been achieved. The Iraqi police state is finished, the Butcher of Baghdad lives in a cage, and all his weapons of mass destruction have disappeared (one way or another).
If we are really commited to helping the Iraqi people, then it is time for us to go. Currently, in Iraq, it is very dangerous for any good Iraqi citizen to openly be our friend. We have worn out our welcome. Let's just declare victory and then leave. We can call it peace with honor. If we postpone leaving, and leave with blood-soaked hands, then win or lose we will have no honor. The Pottery Barn Policy of "if you break it you buy it," makes no sense to me. Iraq was cracked long efore we entered the store. Now is the time for us to do the Iraqis a favor and simply let them be. Leave them with a clean slate. Grant them the freedom to create something of their own making.
We are not the Iraqi people's parents. It is their country. If they want to mess it up, then they should have the freedom and right to mess it up. It is not for us to say. Say the worst happens when we pull out: say the vast majority of people in Iraq want to live under an authoritarian fundamentalist Islamic regime, what then? It is not for us to say.
The Iraqi people have a lot of issues to sort out. Sometimes sorting out issues can be a nasty, bloody affair. Just look at how we settled the issue of states' rights and slavery in this country. It took us a horrible civil war to do it. And look at our good friends, the French: how many of them during their revolution/ civil war surrendered their lives or lost their heads in the name of freedom? So, if Iraq has a bloody civil war when we leave, we cannot say anything about it.
Now is the time for us (the foreign invaders and infidel occupiers) to leave. As I see it, Mr. President, we may not believe that we are fighting a holy war against Islam, but it just so happens that they are fighting a holy war against us. We need to understand that. The radical Islamic fundamentalists see the West as essentially evil. They look down on us. They see us as not quite civilized. To them we are a godless, pleasure-seeking herd of beasts. They look at our movies and monitor our media and then conclude that The United States of America is a violent, sex crazed, intoxicated society.
We may say that we are fighting in Iraq for freedom and democracy, but the Islamic insurgents are fighting for other reasons. They are fighting against Evil and spiritual wickedness. In the name of holy living, they are willing to lay their lives down fighting against us for God. What better cause for a pious person seeking is there than to die for God? The word "Islam" means: to surrender, surrender your life to God, surrender your will to God. Capatalism, communism, democracy, dictatorship, monarchy, these are all worldly systems of government. What the Islamic insurgents are fighting for is to have God's government. They are fighting for a utopian ideal. Does anyone get that? As I see it, the only way for us to prove to these religious fundamentalists that we are not modern-day crusaders, is for us to stop fighting with them.
It takes two to fight. It takes two to have a tug of war. If we fight with them, we are doing exactly what those who hate us expect for us to do. What they will not expect from us is for us to cease resistance. The tug of war will be over if we stop pulling on the rope. If we are not defiling the holy land of the Prophet Mohammed, and if our infidel troops are no longer stationed in the birthplace of Islam, or near the holy city of Mecca, then what can they say?
Please, Mr. President, do not end the war on terror. No, never give that up. I just want our military to focus once more on Osama. He was the one who directly harmed us, right? He is the one who needs to pay, not the Iraqi people.
Also, Mr. President, as an act of good faith and as an act of good will, please pardon all the former combatants who are currently being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba! As far as I am concerned, you could be generous and offer them citizenship here in these United States. Then, if these former "terrorists" reject that offer, you should give them some money (to start a new life) and then send them home to their families. Do what they will not expect: fight fire with love. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
- William Mann
(Athens, GA)
Well, I can't really add to that.....Peace bloggers....and Merry Christmas, Happy Haunakkah (I know I mis-spelled that, sorry...), Happy Kwanzaa, Merry Yule, and Happy Holidays to everyone in the world!
Shanna
DEAR PRESIDENT BUSH
Please accept my greetings and respects. Congratulations on your victory in November. I am writing you today to urge you to end the war. Please stop it now. Bring our citizen soldiers home! You have nothing to lose by doing it. The election is over. You have won. Bring our people home now!
I urge you, Mr. President: this is the time for us to declare victory in Iraq. This is the time for you to declare "Mission Accomplished." Truly it has been. Our most important foreign policy goals in Iraq have all been achieved. The Iraqi police state is finished, the Butcher of Baghdad lives in a cage, and all his weapons of mass destruction have disappeared (one way or another).
If we are really commited to helping the Iraqi people, then it is time for us to go. Currently, in Iraq, it is very dangerous for any good Iraqi citizen to openly be our friend. We have worn out our welcome. Let's just declare victory and then leave. We can call it peace with honor. If we postpone leaving, and leave with blood-soaked hands, then win or lose we will have no honor. The Pottery Barn Policy of "if you break it you buy it," makes no sense to me. Iraq was cracked long efore we entered the store. Now is the time for us to do the Iraqis a favor and simply let them be. Leave them with a clean slate. Grant them the freedom to create something of their own making.
We are not the Iraqi people's parents. It is their country. If they want to mess it up, then they should have the freedom and right to mess it up. It is not for us to say. Say the worst happens when we pull out: say the vast majority of people in Iraq want to live under an authoritarian fundamentalist Islamic regime, what then? It is not for us to say.
The Iraqi people have a lot of issues to sort out. Sometimes sorting out issues can be a nasty, bloody affair. Just look at how we settled the issue of states' rights and slavery in this country. It took us a horrible civil war to do it. And look at our good friends, the French: how many of them during their revolution/ civil war surrendered their lives or lost their heads in the name of freedom? So, if Iraq has a bloody civil war when we leave, we cannot say anything about it.
Now is the time for us (the foreign invaders and infidel occupiers) to leave. As I see it, Mr. President, we may not believe that we are fighting a holy war against Islam, but it just so happens that they are fighting a holy war against us. We need to understand that. The radical Islamic fundamentalists see the West as essentially evil. They look down on us. They see us as not quite civilized. To them we are a godless, pleasure-seeking herd of beasts. They look at our movies and monitor our media and then conclude that The United States of America is a violent, sex crazed, intoxicated society.
We may say that we are fighting in Iraq for freedom and democracy, but the Islamic insurgents are fighting for other reasons. They are fighting against Evil and spiritual wickedness. In the name of holy living, they are willing to lay their lives down fighting against us for God. What better cause for a pious person seeking is there than to die for God? The word "Islam" means: to surrender, surrender your life to God, surrender your will to God. Capatalism, communism, democracy, dictatorship, monarchy, these are all worldly systems of government. What the Islamic insurgents are fighting for is to have God's government. They are fighting for a utopian ideal. Does anyone get that? As I see it, the only way for us to prove to these religious fundamentalists that we are not modern-day crusaders, is for us to stop fighting with them.
It takes two to fight. It takes two to have a tug of war. If we fight with them, we are doing exactly what those who hate us expect for us to do. What they will not expect from us is for us to cease resistance. The tug of war will be over if we stop pulling on the rope. If we are not defiling the holy land of the Prophet Mohammed, and if our infidel troops are no longer stationed in the birthplace of Islam, or near the holy city of Mecca, then what can they say?
Please, Mr. President, do not end the war on terror. No, never give that up. I just want our military to focus once more on Osama. He was the one who directly harmed us, right? He is the one who needs to pay, not the Iraqi people.
Also, Mr. President, as an act of good faith and as an act of good will, please pardon all the former combatants who are currently being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba! As far as I am concerned, you could be generous and offer them citizenship here in these United States. Then, if these former "terrorists" reject that offer, you should give them some money (to start a new life) and then send them home to their families. Do what they will not expect: fight fire with love. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
- William Mann
(Athens, GA)
Well, I can't really add to that.....Peace bloggers....and Merry Christmas, Happy Haunakkah (I know I mis-spelled that, sorry...), Happy Kwanzaa, Merry Yule, and Happy Holidays to everyone in the world!
Shanna
