Dear Mr. President,
I am a registered Democrat, made a very modest contribution to your campaign, and voted for you last November. I am very proud of the fact that you became the President of the United States. On January 20th, my teenage daughter traveled to Washington, DC for your inauguration, and she returned hopeful that the country was entering a new era of responsibility and peace, in spite of serious challenges and difficulties.
This is why I am so disappointed by your decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan by sending 17,000 more troops to that country in the next few days.
Mr. President: The terrorist crime of 9/11/2001 required an adequate response to punish the perpetrators and reduce the danger of further attacks. Our nation has a right to defend itself against terrorism. But that is no excuse to attack anybody unilaterally, even less so a poor, broken country like Afghanistan.
Terrorism of the form that hit us on 9/11 is an international criminal issue that needs to be addressed forcefully, but with the restrain and sense of proportion with which civilized societies deal with crime, large or small. International terrorism is an international-law enforcement issue. In the last analysis, international terrorism is not the product of decontextualized evil, but the result of unhealthy economic and social conditions that war, and the social dislocation that follows it, can only worsen. It needs to be dealt with through international cooperation, and within the confines of international law. The "War on Terror," a horrible slogan, should only metaphorically be a war. The horse must be ahead of the cart.
As it was conducted, the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan under president Bush started wrong. Even if few Americans viewed it that way, especially as it was accompanied by president Bush's bullying rhetoric ("If you are not with us, you are against us"), a large number of people abroad perceived it as an arrogant act of unilateral aggression, the prideful lashing out by the richest and most powerful nation on earth against a small broken nation on the excuse of killing the evildoers. It was an error that must be repaired, not compounded. And it can only be repaired if we take responsibility, admit that the action and the whole approach were wrong, and act accordingly. When the most powerful nation in history acts as if might makes right, it loses its moral standing, and exposes itself to even greatest dangers. What goes around does come around.
We must not send more troops to Afghanistan. Moreover, urgently, we must pull out the troops already there, and take another approach. If you, Mr. President, do not pursue this course, I am convinced that it will end wrong, at great cost in lives, treasury, and international good will.
Pulling our troops out of Afghanistan is only a first step. With the same sense of urgency, our nation should lead the world with an initiative to rebuild the system of international law, make it binding, and supply it with sufficient resources, proportional to the size of our economy, to make it capable of dealing effectively with terrorism, crime, and other global threats. It is crucial that this process be globally democratic in nature, so that it gains global popular legitimacy, sine qua non for the system to be functional and effective. It is in the best interest of the American people to build such a system. Such approach is in the best traditions of American statesmanship, as witnessed by the role that President Franklin D. Roosevelt played in spearheading the United Nations in 1945.
It is true, Mr. President, that such an initiative requires a a healthy measure of respect for all citizens in the rest of the world, as well as a rock-solid commitment to the plight of regular working-class and middle-class Americans, on whose shoulders ultimately fall the burdens of our foreign policy failures. It takes a commitment strong enough to challenge the grip that demagogues and powerful special interests -- like what President Eisenhower once called the industrial-military complex -- have on our foreign policy. But as challenging as that course might be, Mr. President, if you were to take it, you will count with my unconditional support and -- I assure you -- that of millions of people of good faith in the U.S. and the world.
Mr. President: Reverse your decision. Do not send more troops to Afghanistan. Pull all the troops from Afghanistan (and Iraq). Take an effective approach to dealing with international terrorism, regional conflicts, civil wars, and other problems that spill over internationally. Lead a globally democratic process to build a legitimate and binding system of international law, and commit our country to abiding by it. Emphasize (fair) trade and cooperation as the basis for economic development in the poorer regions of the world. It is in the best interest of regular working-class and middle-class Americans to whom you owe the presidency. It's doable. It's urgent.
Sincerely,
Julio Huato 531 41st Street C9 Brooklyn, NY 11232