Twin Towers, Twin Mirrors of Evil

Dear Mr. President,

Eleven years, 6,600 Americans killed, 47,500+ wounded (that does not include the mentally wounded, their lives damaged by what they have done and seen). 10 times those numbers of Iraqis and Afghans killed and wounded, a million displaced. More than 3,000 killed in your undeclared, illegal, immoral drone wars. America is under siege, not by al Qaeda terrorists but by the political terrorists in Washington who create fear and suspicion and promote war and violence. (That includes you, Mr. President.) A trillion dollars on war while here at home our cities crumble and slide into bankruptcy, school libraries close for lack of funds, social programs are decimated and a moral decay rots the core of our democracy. Torture, rendition, suspension of habeas corpus, indefinite detention without legal recourse, extra-judicial killing and summary execution of anyone anywhere, suppression of dissent, a vast surveillance state of secrecy, all are now accepted policy. Consider this: we stopped the turnover of prisoners at the huge Parwan prison to the Afghans because they wouldn’t agree to indefinite detention. Afghanistan for crying out loud, one of the most corrupt governments on the planet wants to try prisoners! Backward Afghanistan, teaching us a lesson in human rights and the rule of law! Osama bin Laden is dead, al Qaeda’s leaders assassinated, but still the wars rage on as new terrorists replace old ones (the Haqqani network the latest to be declared a terrorist network). Afghanistan is under daily attack from both the Taliban and NATO and the Taliban wait in the wings until we leave to surge back into power (already they control much of the country). Iraq, rocked daily by bombings, still lacks essential services and has a government aligned closely with Washington’s arch-enemy, Iran. Mr. President, we lost both Bush’s “dumb” war and your “just” war because both were based on lies and fantasy. War is evil and not even “the mightiest military in the history of mankind” can make it just. War destroys both sides and truth is its first casualty. Bush promoted his dumb war with lies and a fantasy of controlling the Middle East’s oil. You are no better with your secret justifications and kill lists and drone wars and disregard for laws, treaties and the Constitution. Bush and Obama. Twin evil-doers, twin war criminals, twin mirrors of the twin towers, symbolic of the collapse of morality and justice on this 11^th anniversary of September 11, 2001.