A Veteran's Letter to the President

Dear Mr. President,

Yesterday was Veteran’s Day and today’s New York Times dutifully carried a photo of you at Arlington—the commander-in-chief honoring the dead. But it is you and your ilk who have sent them to die. Politicians declare war, war profiteers benefit and the people and the planet loses. Kim Carlyle, editor of War Crimes Times, posted a thought-provoking article on the paper’s blog site http://www.warcrimestimes.org/2012/11/armistice-day-peace-and-other-things.html that traces the evolution of this holiday. President Woodrow Wilson originally proclaimed Armistice Day, the day WW I ended, as a day for “America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations.” In 1926 Congress enacted a resolution that November 11 “should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace…” and in 1938 Congress made November 11 a federal holiday, “a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace…” But in 1954, Congress changed the name from Armistice Day to Veteran’s Day “To honor veterans… a day dedicated to world peace,” a shift in priorities from peace to war, Carlyle points out that it was that shift in language and priority that ultimately brought us to the current state of perpetual war. Politicians and their propagandists mask reality by manipulating language. The bumper sticker “Honor the warrior, not the war” for example; is a mental gymnastic of hypocrisy; there is no way to separate warrior from war; to honor the warrior is to honor the war. In your letters of October 24 and November 1, you mention our “courageous service members.” Courage and heroism are words that mask the reality of terror and confusion. Many who go into combat piss their pants, freeze in fear or curl into fetal balls. I have heard this from veterans of WW II, Korea, Vietnam. There is nothing heroic, glorious or patriotic about war. Heroism is a desperate act of self-preservation, common humanity or temporary insanity. There is nothing heroic, patriotic or courageous in murdering another human being. War is ugly and violent; it is the result of lies, ignorance, stupidity and greed. War is immoral and those who declare and promote war are evil. We now live in a state of perpetual war; you are institutionalizing it. This is perhaps the most evil thing you have done and it will reap a terrible harvest. We have lost our way, we have become a nation of brutes and terrorists, abandoning the path of peace for the hell of war.