Sunday, June 19, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

Once again there’s money for war but not peace. I rarely agree with Republicans, but John Boehner is right: $10 million a day to bomb Libya and kill Qaddafi is a hostile action that has lasted more than 60 days without congressional approval, a violation of the War Powers Act. Your top legal advisors deem it a hostile action but you overrule and ignore their counsel, hell-bent to what, show your macho credentials? Are you counting coup? You got bin Laden’s scalp, now you want to add Qaddafi’s? At what cost? Add Libya’s $10 million a day to $427 million a day for Iraq and Afghanistan, $8 million a day to arm Israel and Egypt, another $8 million for Pakistan, and who knows how many million a day for covert operations and drone strikes in Yemen and other countries you don’t want us to know about and we’re talking serious money here, around $500 million a day to kill and destroy while here at home millions are unemployed and underemployed, our roads crumble, our education system continues to degrade, the quality of our healthcare is a national disgrace, no money to fix anything, and the “War on Terror” is funded on the U.S. taxpayer’s credit card, war on the kill now, pay later plan. But we’re already paying, Mr. President. We’re paying for it in broken lives and shattered dreams. And we’re paying for it in a malevolence that seeps into every aspect of American society; a mean-spiritedness that has no regard for humanity or the future or the consequences of our acts, that honors and extols violence and denigrates empathy for our fellow man, that hardens our hearts to the plight of the disenfranchised and powerless. Power corrupts, Mr. President, and you have fallen victim. War is evil, it victimizes us all. Ten years of misguided wars for what? We are no safer than we were on 9/11, and the world is not a better place; there is more misery, more hatred, more enmity now than ever, and for America, the wars have been a disaster; they have corroded our spirit, our morality, our sense of right and wrong. A trillion dollars on wars based on deception and lies. A trillion dollars that could have brought so much good has instead brought misery and hatred. You were elected in reaction to these wars, on the promise of ending them, but you have been seduced by power and become a warmonger like your predecessor. There is no honor in war and violence, Mr. President, but you persist. You continue to betray yourself and America and bring shame on us all.