Obama's Letter: Spinning a Fictional Reality

Dear Mr. President,

Received you July 29 letter yesterday, one of the more outrageous spin jobs I’ve received yet. From the 2^nd paragraph: “My Administration is using every element of our national power to keep our country secure, prosperous, and free.” Secure? Your drone wars are the best recruiting tool Al Qaeda has: there are more militants in Yemen now than when we started our covert war there; our drone attacks in Pakistan have turned the Pakistanis against us—80% now view us as their enemy; your war in Afghanistan has turned large portions of that population against us—many rural areas live in fear of the American trained and directed Local Police, they view the Special Forces as no different than the Taliban and they see little if any improvement in their lives since our arrival. Al Qaida franchises pop up everywhere, our embassies in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia are closed this weekend because of terrorist threats and a worldwide alert has been issued to travelers. We’re no safer now than on 9/10. Prosperous? We’ve spent trillions on war and billions on surveillance while defunding food stamps and child health care, letting our cities go bankrupt, our social services shred and our citizens left to fend for themselves. It’s only the war profiteers and the 1% who prosper in America. Free? Freedom does not include indefinite detention and assassination without legal recourse. It does not include secret laws and findings, the suppression of information, and the persecution of whistleblowers. And freedom certainly does not include the invasion of privacy—PRISM, XKeyscore and other illegal NSA activity. From the 3^rd paragraph: “The war in Iraq is over.” The war in Iraq is over for us, not for them. There are bombings every day in Baghdad and elsewhere—each one worse than the Boston Marathon bombing—and July had the highest civilian casualty count in 5 years. “The number of our troops in harm’s way has been cut in half, and more will soon be coming home.” Playing with numbers: you doubled the number of troops and they’re now back to where they were before your surge. “As in Iraq, we are building an enduring partnership to strengthen Afghan sovereignty and stability…” Neither country is stable; Iraq is aligned with Iran not us and Karzai denounces us on a regular basis (while taking bags of cash from the CIA). Like Iraq, Afghanistan will quickly sink into chaos after we leave. Your letter spins a fictional reality, Mr. President. It just ain’t so.