Friday, December 17, 2010

Dear Mr. President,

The “War on Terror” that your predecessor started and you carry on cannot be won. Terror is not a state, there is no central authority or location to focus on. Terror is a state of mind, a state of perspective, a state of being. Until someone of courage in a leadership role examines the root causes of 9/11, about why people attacked us in the first place and why people keep joining the jihad against us faster than we can kill them off, this is an unending, unwinnable war. As long as we continue to support corrupt and brutal regimes like Hamid Karzai’s in Afghanistan, regimes that suppress, ignore and deny their people basic human rights and freedom, of course people will oppose us, fight us, hate us. We support Karzai and his corrupt regime with 100,000 U.S. and 50,000 NATO troops. We are spending $100 billion a year to keep him in power, a man and a government that makes a mockery of the concept of democracy, who does nothing to make the lives of Afghani citizens better, who enriches himself and his allies at the expense of his country, whose election was fraudulent... and yet we still support this man against our own principles and against our own best interests. I read this morning that the use of drones in Pakistan will be stepped up in the coming year in an effort to seal the porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. I read that in 2009 you authorized 53 CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, more than your predecessor - The War President, as he called himself - authorized during his entire eight year reign of terror; that this year, 2010, that figure more than doubled and now you want to increase it further. This is not only immoral, Mr. President, this further sows the seeds of hatred and fear and brings additional shame to our country. In a book called Master of the Eclipse, by Etel Adnan, the author discusses power, the kind of power you wield: “What’s his power? It’s awesome... It is the power to crush bones from a distance. Distance is of essential importance. It renders responsibility invisible and retaliation impossible.” That is exactly the situation with drone strikes. And that is exactly what drives people to join jihad against us.