An Open Letter to the President


sorabji.com: What have you done?: An Open Letter to the President
THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016).

By A Concerned Assistant on Tuesday, June 15, 2004 - 02:58 pm:

    Hey George! Or, Mister President:

    You went and got us into a war. You just had to do it. You just couldn’t leave well enough alone. Yeah, I know all the guys around you were for it and egging you on, but let’s face it, if you didn’t say ''okey dokey'' it would never have happened. Sure, it was a big mess before you got involved, but didn’t you ever stop and think? You’re talking a war with a whole country, not some little regional conflict. And, over what? Some two-bit tyrant? So, because of him we now are stuck with building a new nation?

    Why did you listen to all those pals of yours? There were a lot of very highly intelligent, well educated, and reasonable men around you who kept telling you that it could all be worked out diplomatically. No, you just pooh-poohed that idea with all your talk about freedom, democracy, and the rights of the people. Give me a break! Everyone knows that 90% of it was about money … good old free enterprise, capitalism, and commerce. The rest was just personal: you just couldn’t stand the guy! A good deal of Americans are 100% convinced that all of this was a personal vendetta.

    It’s no small wonder that almost no other countries in the world came to your aid to fight this war you started. It was a stupid, stupid move to just up and go it alone. It also proved very costly. Huge amount of soldiers on both sides have been killed, not to mention civilians: men, women, and yes, children too. Past the very tragic human cost, you have brought the United States to the brink of bankruptcy along with making us an outcast among the rest of the nations of the world.

    Worst of all is how arrogant you are. As Commander in Chief you zip on in and talk to the troops, giving them the old pep rally, while at the same time they are sent to fight, ill equipped with little or no protection. Even your own commanders in the field complain that we are desperately lacking a proper amount of soldiers in the field. They ask for help, and get lip service!

    That’s all anybody ever gets from you is the tired old line that you’re doing this for our freedom and that you’re the kind of guy that stands by his convictions. Just like almost everyone else, I also get sick of all that honesty and integrity stuff. You make yourself out to be some great moral character with this rock solid faith, always praying for the troops and for all the rest of us. You really ought to give it a rest; after all, it was you that started the war!

    Here’s a news flash, George: Most Americans may have started out behind you, but after a year of bloodshed most had had enough. And, where was your plan for after the war? You didn’t have one and you damn well know it. You just winged it, mostly leaving it up to your pals, your close buddies, who got you into this mess in the first place. Those are just the people to leave it up to--your wealthy friends, salivating at all the money they will make with this new ''free'' country. Everyone knows they hand picked the leaders, just like they got you to be president.

    You may think that you’re a great leader and an excellent president and you’ve probably got enough warmongering rich buddies to get you two terms in office, but there’s a lot of folks out there in America who doubt the United States could even survive your second term. That’s just fine with me because I just couldn’t stand the thought of seeing ''George Washington'' on our money.

    Sincerely,


By The Watcher on Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 01:41 pm:

    And, I think this ass. is a fool.


By Antigone on Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 03:13 pm:

    Yeah, spunky is a real tool, ain't he?


By semillama on Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 03:33 pm:

    Yeah, considering that any attempt to compare the American Revolution with the Iraq War is apples and oranges, nevermind that the whole piece is chock full of errors and misconceptions.


By patrick on Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 03:47 pm:

    is that the spunktard?

    if so, at least he has the intelligence to change his mind. you're head's so far up your ass watcher, you couldnt even look left much less consider anothe r opinion despite prevailing wisdom.


By Antigone on Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 05:11 pm:

    It's him. IP comes from his new company. And before you say it I'm not outing him. He already posted a link to his workplace back in February.

    It looks like a cut 'n' paste job, probably geared to make us agree with it so he can start an argument, or so he can say "you agreed with that stupid 'Concerned' post."


By patrick on Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 05:25 pm:

    its a pretty crappy letter. regardless of who or where it came from.


By semillama on Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 06:13 pm:

    well, it's blaringly obvious what it's about. Pretty weak.

    Obviously written by someone with a below-average grasp of American History.


By Rowlfe on Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - 08:24 pm:

    I see the IP thing, but I would have thought even if spunky changed his mind, a few things would linger. Even if spunky changed his mind about Bush and writing it himself, I dont think he'd call Hussein (or if he was writing it, Hussien) a 'two bit tyrant'.

    So now that he's been caught, maybe he should come clean.


By semillama on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 10:33 am:

    What's funny about that article is that there are some things that are correct in there. Such as the general population during the American Revolution not being enthusiastic about it. John Adams thought that about a third of the people supported the war, a third opposed it and a third were neutral.

    The Continental Congress was in charge of the revolitn colonies during the war, not George Washington, who commanded the army. And guess who made up that body of men? Rich guys involved in factions and business/family connections. In Maryland in 1776, to run for Governor you had to own 5,000 pounds of property, and for senate, 1,000 pounds. So the vast majority of people were banned from holding office. Tell me who wrote that law, and who it benefited?

    Look, the guys who started the revolution were not like you and me. They were the CEOs of their day.
    and as far as fighting for freedom, the American Revolution did not result in the end of slavery, and it did not result in voting rights for people without property, women, or anyone not a white man, for that matter. There were more indentured servants after the revolution than before it.


By The Watcher on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 06:43 pm:

    Sem, you got one thing wrong. In 1776 the Governor of Maryland like all other colonies was appointed by the crown. Not elected.


By semillama on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 07:08 pm:

    I beg to differ. Nobody was appointed by the king after the revolution started.


By Gee on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 10:12 am:

    FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!


By The Watcher on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 01:22 pm:

    The Revolution hadn't started in Maryland by then.


By Stan Coerr on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 01:22 pm:

    George Bush coalesced American support behind invading Iraq, I am told, using two arguments: Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and the capability to deliver them, and Iraq was a supporter of Al-Qaeda terrorism, and may have been involved in the attacks of 9/11. Vicious words and gratuitous finger-pointing keep falling back on these points, as people insist that "we" were misled into what started as a dynamic liberation and has become a bloody counterinsurgency. Watching politicians declaim and hearing television experts expound on why we went to war and on their opinions of those running the White House and Defense Department, I have one question.

    When is someone going to ask the guys who were there?

    What about the opinions of those whose lives were on the line, massed on the Iraq-Kuwait border beginning in February of last year? I don't know how President Bush got the country behind him, because at the time I was living in a hole in the dirt in northern Kuwait. Why have I not heard a word from anyone who actually carried a rifle or flew a plane into bad guy country last year, and who has since had to deal with the ugly aftermath of a violent liberation? What about the guys who had the most to lose...what do they think about all this?

    I was there. I am one of those guys who fought the war and helped keep the peace. I am a Major in the Marine Reserves, and during the war I was the senior American attached to the 1 Royal Irish Battlegroup, a rifle battalion of the British Army. I was commander of five U.S. Marine air/naval gunfire liaison teams, as well as the liaison officer between U.S. Marines and British Army forces. I was activated on January 14, 2003, and 17 days later I and my Marines were standing in Kuwait with all of our gear, ready to go to war.

    I majored in Political Science at Duke, and I graduated with a Masters degree in government from the Kennedy School at Harvard. I understand realpolitik, geopolitical jujitsu, economics and the reality of the Arab world. I know the tension between the White House, the UN, Langley and Foggy Bottom. One of my grandfathers was a two-star Navy admiral; my other grandfather was an ambassador. I am not a pushover, blindly following whoever is in charge, and I don't kid myself that I live in a perfect world. But the war made sense then, and the occupation makes sense now.

    As dawn broke on March 22, 2003, I became part of one of the largest and fastest land movements in the history of war. I went across the border alongside my brothers in the Royal Irish, following the 5th Marine Regiment from Camp Pendleton as they swept through the Ramaylah oil fields. I was one those guys you saw on TV every night- filthy, hot, exhausted. I think the NRA and their right-to-bear-arms mantra is a joke, but by God I was carrying a loaded rifle, a loaded pistol and a knife on my body at all times. My boots rested on sandbags on the floor of my Humvee, there to protect me from the blast of a land mines or IED. I killed many Iraqi soldiers, as they tried to kill me and my Marines. I did it with a radio, directing airstrikes and artillery, in concert with my British artillery officer counterpart, in combat along the Hamar Canal in southern Iraq. I saw, up close, everything the rest of you see in the newspapers: dead bodies, parts of dead bodies, helmets with bullet holes through them, handcuffed POWs sitting in the sand, oil well fires with flames reaching 100 feet into the air and a roar you could hear from over a mile away.

    I stood on the bloody sand where Marine Second Lieutenant Therrel Childers was the first American killed on the ground. I pointed a loaded weapon at another man for the first time in my life. I did what I had spent 14 years training to do, and my Marines - your Marines - performed so well it still brings tears to my eyes to think about it. I was proud of what we did then, and I am proud of it now.

    Along with the violence, I saw many things that lifted my heart. I saw thousands of Iraqis in cities like Qurnah and Medinah - men, women, children, grandparents carrying babies - running into the streets at the sight of us, the first Western army to arrive. I saw them screaming, crying, waving, cheering. They ran from their homes at the sound of our Humvee tires roaring in from the south, bringing bread and tea and cigarettes and photos of their children. They chattered at us in Arabic, and we spoke to them in English, and neither understood the other. The entire time I was in Iraq, I had one impression from the civilians I met: Thank God, finally someone has arrived with bigger men and bigger guns to be, at last, on our side.

    Let there be no mistake, those of you who don't believe in this war: the Ba'ath regime were the Nazis of the second half of the 20th century. I saw what the murderous, brutal regime of Saddam Hussein wrought on that country through his party and their Fedayeen henchmen. They raped, murdered, tortured, extorted and terrorized those in that country for 35 years. There are mass graves throughout Iraq only now being discovered. 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, out of Camp Pendleton, liberated a prison in Iraq populated entirely by children. The Ba'athists brutalized the weakest among them, and killed the strongest.

    I saw in the eyes of the people how a generation of fear reflects in the human soul.

    The Ba'ath Party, like the Nazis before them, kept power by spreading out, placing their officials in every city and every village to keep the people under their boot. Everywhere we went we found rifles, ammunition, RPG rounds, mortar shells, rocket launchers, and artillery. When we took over the southern city of Ramaylah, our battalion commander tore down the Ba'ath signs and commandeered the former regime headquarters in town (which, by the way, was 20 feet from the local school.) My commander himself took over the office of the local Ba'ath leader, and in opening the desk of that thug found a set of brass knuckles and a gun. These are the people who are now in prison, and that is where they deserve to be.

    The analogy is simple. For years, you have watched the same large, violent man come home every night, and you have listened to his yelling and the crying and the screams of children and the noise of breaking glass, and you have always known that he was beating his wife and his children. Everyone on the block has known it. You ask, cajole, threaten and beg him to stop, on behalf of the rest of the neighborhood. Nothing works. After listening to it for 13 years, you finally gather up the biggest, meanest guys you can find, you go over to his house, and you kick the door down. You punch him in the face and drag him away. The house is a mess, the family poor and abused...but now there is hope. You did the right thing.

    I can speak with authority on the opinions of both British and American infantry in that place and at that time. Let me make this clear: at no time did anyone say or imply to any of us that we were invading Iraq to rid the country of weapons of mass destruction, nor were we there to avenge 9/11. We knew we were there for one reason: to rid the world of a tyrant, and to give Iraq back to Iraqis.

    None of us had even heard those arguments for going to war until we returned, and we still don't understand the confusion. To us, it was simple. The world needed to be rid of a man who committed mass murder of an entire people, and our country was the only one that could project that much power that far and with that kind of precision. We don't make policy decisions: we carry them out. And none of us had the slightest doubt about how right and good our actions were.

    The war was the right thing to do then, and in hindsight it was still the right thing to do. We can't overthrow every murderous tyrant in the world, but when we can, we should. Take it from someone who was there, and who stood to lose everything. We must, and will, stay the course. We owe it to the Iraqis, and to the world.

    I am a SuperCobra attack helicopter pilot and Forward Air Controller, and I was recently selected for Lieutenant Colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve. I live in San Diego.


By The Watcher on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 01:35 pm:


By The Watcher on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 01:37 pm:


By patrick on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 02:03 pm:

    oh my god.


    you fucking commie.


By patrick on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 02:18 pm:

    oh my god.


    you fucking commie.


By Rowlfe on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 02:38 pm:

    Worldnetdaily is not a credible source for anything. Its the same as Newsmax. So you know. Trying to convince anyone with this would be like me only using the Nation as one of my sources. I mean, they have a Hannity book advertised on that same page, and he's probably only second to Coulter in PLPP (proven lies per publication).

    If that Russian intelligence had any weight, and the US had it in 2002, considering all the flimsy evidence used in the march to war, don't you think we would have heard about this before March 2003? Of course we would have. What, terror ships at sea make the cut and a direct threat from Iraq shared from intl. intelligence to the US doesn't? The timing of this release should tell you everything, and it STILL isnt even on the Moscow Times front page.




    Limbaugh said today that the Comissions findings arent to be trusted because they're partisan, and because they're commenting on TV.

    Hilarious. There are 5 Republicans and 5 Democrats, and all votes have been unanimous, 10-0. Yeah, very partisan. And it was Keane, the Republican, who has been urging commission members to share their opinions with the media, so they dont come across like the Warren Commission.

    The right wingers of the media have been having a great time being selectively informed.



By Antigone on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 02:50 pm:

    Actually, I found the news about Russian intelligence interesting. They told us Iraq was about to attack the US, then they undermined the war? Sounds like a classic bait and switch to me.


By Rowlfe on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 04:31 pm:

    Don't make the mistake of thinking that what Russian intelligence says is what the leaders think. They're no more "one" than the US is.


By patrick on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 05:55 pm:

    i find the article about Russian intelligence entirely useless, pointless and totally irrelavent. Moreover, the timing is entirely suspect.


By The Watcher on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 06:55 pm:

    Just like any other news source Worldnetdaily only publishes what fits they're agenda.

    Same as the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, etc.


By semillama on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 07:54 pm:

    SO are you saying you only read news that fits your agenda?


By Rowlfe on Friday, June 18, 2004 - 09:51 pm:

    Worldnetdaily ONLY publishes pro-Bush, pro-conservative.

    Say what you will about the NY Times, but they are NOT a leftist equivolent. They are downright centrist. The Boston Globe has been quite anti-Kerry, the NY Times had Judith Miller accepting everything Chalabi said, basically being an echo chamber for anything Cheney said during the march to war. All the networks have one agenda = MONEY, and during the march to war all basically accepted everything the Bush admin said and made all protestors out to be a much smaller minority than they were.

    Come on Watcher, don't be so naive. Dont be one of these people that thinks anything left of Fox must therefore be "liberal media", as if theres only two types.


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