| March
19, 2003
To
President George W. Bush:
As
I am writing this, the first bombing runs have begun over Iraq.
Within hours, no doubt, the full-scale invasion will begin, and
it is only a matter of time before Baghdad falls to the Americans.
Congratulations, sir, you finally have your war.
But
never forget that this victory will have come at a heavy cost. The
many claims for justifying this war have been debunked, disproven,
and exposed as outright lies. This has nothing whatsoever to do
with September 11. Saddam had no part in the terrorist attacks on
our soil; none of the 19 hijackers came from Iraq. There has never
been any connection.
You
and your administration know this, but you continue to feed the
fear and anxiety of the American people, scaring them with visions
of Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction. Scare them with visions
of a terrorist apocalypse, scare them with color bars, scare them
with duct tape; as long as people are too frightened to ask any
difficult questions, like "why don't I have health coverage?"
and "what happened to my job?"
The
simple truth is that Iraq poses a threat to no one, especially the
United States. Our sovereignty and safety are not being threatened,
and never have been threatened. There are no nuclear weapons, no
"unmanned drones," no "weapons of mass destruction."
Iraq is not about to sweep across the Middle East like Hitler in
Europe.
Perhaps
the problem is that you are simply uninformed. It is well known
that you don't like to read daily briefings, preferring to have
aides read them to you. You haven't read books, or traveled widely,
or shown any interest in world affairs. It makes sense to you that
Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein would conspire together; after
all, they are both bad men who hate America. Isn't that enough?
Obviously,
in the court of world opinion, it is not. Again, congratulations
are in order. After 9/11, you had the overwhelming sympathy of the
whole world. In only 18 months, that support has not only disintegrated,
it has drained away any previous support of the United States. America
is now seen as an imperialist empire, and you are now seen as a
greater threat to the world than Saddam or even Bin Laden.
Perhaps
you should have a talk with your daddy. Ask him this question: why
did the United States prop up and support Saddam's regime during
the 1980s? This is during the time that he used chemical weapons
against the Iranians, and later the Kurds. When these atrocities
were revealed, the Reagan administration rewarded Saddam; rewarded
with weapons, aid, and political support. Why did they do that?
Because Iraq was a secular regime, a balance against the Islamic
Fundamentalist regime in Iran, and terrorists like, well, Osama
bin Laden.
Maybe
you just need some better advisors. You have poor facts if you think
Iraq is an immediate threat to world peace. The Iraqi army is only
one-third the size is was at the time of the Gulf War. The majority
of Iraqi citizens are children; 70% are under the age of 15. The
crippling economic sanctions have resulted in the deaths of 500,000
children under the age of five, and US and British planes have been
regularly bombing targets in the No-Fly Zone every week since 1991.
Tell me, does this sound like an imminent threat to you?
An
invasion of Iraq has been the dream of Neocons for years. Back in
1992, Paul Wolfowitz presented his version of a post-Cold War world,
a world dominated by the United States, to your father's administration.
It was quickly rejected, but it did not stop them. Ever heard of
the Project for a New American Century? You should, since its members
include Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld,
Gary Bauer, Dan Quayle (?), Elliott Abrams, William Kristol, and
William J. Bennett, among others. Their manifestos since 1997 call
for the emergence of a "global Pax Americana" that exerts
its dominance over the world. Taking Iraq is essential to American
military control over the region.
Of
course, this ideology of unilateral, preemptive war has been enshrined
as official US policy. Your distaste for global treaties and the
UN is obvious; America should be free to literally do whatever the
hell it wants, and if anyone objects, then there's another potential
target in the Permament War.
It
doesn't matter now; the Hawks are getting their empire at the cost
of the EU, NATO, and the UN. But who needs them? Pat Robertson thinks
the UN is just a cover for the Anti-Christ, anyway (when he isn't
blaming the Jews and Gays, and taking money from third-world dictators).
But
maybe I'm getting a little paranoid. I mean, just because the very
people who run our government have dreamed of empire for years,
and wrote numerous papers through various think-tanks, that don't
mean they would actually carry it out. Right?
While
you're at it, sir, may I suggest you have a little talk with Tony
Blair? The poor fellow is under the impression that Iraq's oil reserves
will be placed in trust for the Iraqi people. You really should
get on the phone and let him in on Dick Cheney's plans to give all
the plum post-war contracts to American corporations. Who better
to be in charge of the oil than Halliburton; maybe that's just because
Cheney still receives $1 million a year salary from his former company.
Maybe I'm just being suspicious again.
Thank
goodness the days of lying and deceit under the Clinton White House
are long over. Nobody is lying about sex.
That's
not important, anyway; the important thing now is for Americans
to support their sons and daughters in uniform. And I intend to
do my part. Tomorrow I will be marching in anti-war protests and
candlelight vigils, and I will continue to resist a war that I feel
is unjust and unnecessary. You call it being "unpatriotic;"
I call it "being informed." I don't want our soldiers
to be caught in the middle of a fractured civil war, with targets
on their backs because they are seen as infidel crusaders. And I
don't want blood spilt for oil and empire.
Damn
you, Mister Bush. Damn you and your criminal family for unleashing
this war upon us. Damn you for scaring the dumb proles in this country
so that you and your cronies can loot and pillage America and the
world.
Daniel
Thomas |
