Another Very Special Post

August 24, 2007 by Alpha.

Dear President Bush,

You and I don’t agree on much, these days. You say potato, I say quagmire. We both like baseball, though! What are your thoughts on designated hitters?

I digress. You and I would probably agree, more or less, on the short list of major threats facing the United States today. You and I would definitely both put al-Qaeda. As international criminal organizations go, you might have to skim James Bond novels to find anything better. They are thought responsible for significant attacks in 15 countries in the last 20 years, beginning with the Afghan insurgency against the Soviet Union in the late 1980’s.

I would like, as a member of the 9-11 Generation, to offer you some advice on the remainder of your term in office. Consider the terrorist, from the suicide bomber in Tanzania to Osama bin Laden in Waziristan. What is it that he seeks? What, in his mind, justifies his sins?

The stated mission of al-Qaeda, as put forth by Mr. bin Laden, is the establishment of a new Muslim caliphate. To that end, he requires the elimination of foreign forces from Muslim lands. In pursuit of this goal he has made a double-edged campaign, on the one hand working to galvanize the people of the Middle East to cast out the blasphemers (that’s us, Sir) and on the other hand using that same religious fervor to whip up a violent global effort to make our continued presence in the region as expensive and untenable as possible. These two efforts reinforce one another, as one hand washes the other.

Any thinking person would see that this delicate relationship is the lynchpin in Mr. bin Laden’s plan. If we refuse to kowtow to his demands or if we refuse to play the evil interloper in the holiest places in the most popular religion in the world, perhaps we can eliminate this particular danger.

You have, however not done these things, Sir. You have encouraged the American people to be afraid of Mr. bin Laden, when they are more likely to die by being struck by lightning or by choking on a toothpick than they are to be killed in an act of terrorism. Even more stupefying, Sir, is the nearly quixotic fervor with which you have delivered Mr. bin Ladin and al-Qaeda ammunition with which to besmirch and defame whatever good name we may have had in the Middle East. Perhaps worst of all, you appear to have attempted to best our foes at their own game by directly attacking the civil rights of American citizens and wilfully ignoring your responsibility to the Constitution.

Here is my advice to you, Mr. President: do, with what time remains everything that you have not done in the first six-and-a-half years of your presidency. Open your eyes, and open your mind. As Machiavelli wrote, while it is better to be feared, it is never to your benefit to be hated.

If you cannot do good Sir, I beg you to do better.

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