Letter To The President
04/07/05
H.E. President Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Av.
Washington D.C.
Dear Mr. President,
I heard you speak about Iraq the other day, and I became so interested that I acquired the text and read it twice. I also read comments on the speech, before deciding to send you this letter.
I wish to God that everything you said about Iraq is true, but it is not. Still I want to be positive and agree with you on one of the most important points in the speech: you definitely must not set an artificial timetable for withdrawal as it would send the wrong message to the enemy, who would then wait you out. I support the continued presence of American troops in Iraq, until you accomplish the mission of defeating the terrorists (like you, I see them as terrorists not resistance or even insurgents).
From here on it is downhill.
One general point that I find disturbing is the repeated use in the speech of the 9/11 terrorism, while speaking about the war on Iraq. There is absolutely no link between the two. And Iraq did not have WMD either. I don’t find the cost of removing Saddam justified.
More specifically, you say that you wanted “to take the fight to the enemy”, that “Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war”, and that “there is only one course of action against them (the terrorists): to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home”.
Why should the Iraqis suffer on your behalf? They had nothing to do with 9/11, and yet they have lost about 100.000 men, women and children to the war, against your loss of about 3.000 in the murderous attack on the World Trade Center.
I agree with the picture you present of Iraq today: ruthless killers are carrying out the violence, hundreds of foreign fighters from Arab and foreign countries have been killed or captured by your troops, the terrorists are making common cause with criminal elements and remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime , the terrorists explode car bombs in busy shopping streets, send a suicide bomber to a teaching hospital and behead civilian hostages.
This is all true and horrible and was not there until you liberated (occupied) Iraq.
Mr. President,
You said in your latest speech about Iraq that you spoke about the coalition goals in Iraq about a year ago. I remember that speech vividly. It was delivered at the U S Army War College in Pennsylvania. And you know what Mr. President? I find the two speeches similar, almost identical.
Are you going to deliver the same speech in a year from now? Also the following year? I hope not.
Maybe the two speeches are similar because you don’t have a new offer to make to the American and Iraqi peoples. Maybe a new policy is unachievable because you find yourself in a position where you cannot win and cannot withdraw.
The text of your speech that I have is in eight pages of which two and a half are devoted to you’re achievements in Iraq, like improving roads, schools, health services, sanitation, electricity and water.
You are a man who believes in God and the truth, but someone is telling you a lie. One example suffices: electricity is now available to the Iraqis about eight hours of 24. Under Saddam Hussein after the liberation of Kuwait, electricity was made fully available within weeks. The huge Dawra power station was repaired by Iraqis with local material. Do you accept that your great country fails to achieve over two years what Saddam Hussein achieved in a few weeks under the sanctions. I suggest that you punish companies like Halliburton, because the 200 billion dollars squandered in Iraq so for would have been put to better and more urgent use at home, like repairing your inner cities.
Mr. President,
Please read an editorial in the New York Times, which I read in the International Herald Tribune. It was published Tuesday morning and you spoke Tuesday night. That brilliant editorial said three facts must be acknowledged for a sober conversation about Iraq: The war has nothing to do with
September 11, the war has not made the United States, or the world, safer from terrorisms; if the war is going according to plan someone needs to rethink the plan.
If you do rethink the plan, I hope you do not listen to the war party of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and the Israelis around them. They are responsible for the current mess and are adding to it. One day the Vice-president says the insurgency is in its “last throes”, the next day the Defense Secretary says it will take 12 years to defeat the insurgency.
You need a better legacy to leave to your country and the world than the war party can provide. Please change course. Admitting a mistake is the first step towards rectifying it.
With respect,
Jihad El Khazen.
H.E. President Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Av.
Washington D.C.
Dear Mr. President,
I heard you speak about Iraq the other day, and I became so interested that I acquired the text and read it twice. I also read comments on the speech, before deciding to send you this letter.
I wish to God that everything you said about Iraq is true, but it is not. Still I want to be positive and agree with you on one of the most important points in the speech: you definitely must not set an artificial timetable for withdrawal as it would send the wrong message to the enemy, who would then wait you out. I support the continued presence of American troops in Iraq, until you accomplish the mission of defeating the terrorists (like you, I see them as terrorists not resistance or even insurgents).
From here on it is downhill.
One general point that I find disturbing is the repeated use in the speech of the 9/11 terrorism, while speaking about the war on Iraq. There is absolutely no link between the two. And Iraq did not have WMD either. I don’t find the cost of removing Saddam justified.
More specifically, you say that you wanted “to take the fight to the enemy”, that “Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war”, and that “there is only one course of action against them (the terrorists): to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home”.
Why should the Iraqis suffer on your behalf? They had nothing to do with 9/11, and yet they have lost about 100.000 men, women and children to the war, against your loss of about 3.000 in the murderous attack on the World Trade Center.
I agree with the picture you present of Iraq today: ruthless killers are carrying out the violence, hundreds of foreign fighters from Arab and foreign countries have been killed or captured by your troops, the terrorists are making common cause with criminal elements and remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime , the terrorists explode car bombs in busy shopping streets, send a suicide bomber to a teaching hospital and behead civilian hostages.
This is all true and horrible and was not there until you liberated (occupied) Iraq.
Mr. President,
You said in your latest speech about Iraq that you spoke about the coalition goals in Iraq about a year ago. I remember that speech vividly. It was delivered at the U S Army War College in Pennsylvania. And you know what Mr. President? I find the two speeches similar, almost identical.
Are you going to deliver the same speech in a year from now? Also the following year? I hope not.
Maybe the two speeches are similar because you don’t have a new offer to make to the American and Iraqi peoples. Maybe a new policy is unachievable because you find yourself in a position where you cannot win and cannot withdraw.
The text of your speech that I have is in eight pages of which two and a half are devoted to you’re achievements in Iraq, like improving roads, schools, health services, sanitation, electricity and water.
You are a man who believes in God and the truth, but someone is telling you a lie. One example suffices: electricity is now available to the Iraqis about eight hours of 24. Under Saddam Hussein after the liberation of Kuwait, electricity was made fully available within weeks. The huge Dawra power station was repaired by Iraqis with local material. Do you accept that your great country fails to achieve over two years what Saddam Hussein achieved in a few weeks under the sanctions. I suggest that you punish companies like Halliburton, because the 200 billion dollars squandered in Iraq so for would have been put to better and more urgent use at home, like repairing your inner cities.
Mr. President,
Please read an editorial in the New York Times, which I read in the International Herald Tribune. It was published Tuesday morning and you spoke Tuesday night. That brilliant editorial said three facts must be acknowledged for a sober conversation about Iraq: The war has nothing to do with
September 11, the war has not made the United States, or the world, safer from terrorisms; if the war is going according to plan someone needs to rethink the plan.
If you do rethink the plan, I hope you do not listen to the war party of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and the Israelis around them. They are responsible for the current mess and are adding to it. One day the Vice-president says the insurgency is in its “last throes”, the next day the Defense Secretary says it will take 12 years to defeat the insurgency.
You need a better legacy to leave to your country and the world than the war party can provide. Please change course. Admitting a mistake is the first step towards rectifying it.
With respect,
Jihad El Khazen.
posted by Khazen at 3:10 AM
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