Dear Editor,
George Bush is preparing to launch our country into unprovoked war of aggression against a sovereign nation. We are sending troops thousands of miles from our shores to invade and indefinitely occupy a country that has neither attacked nor threatened to attack us, a country that is, in fact, incapable of posing any meaningful military threat to us even if it wished to. International support for this action is at best weak and, insofar as it exists, is due only to the enormous military and economic hegemony of our country in the world community. Our roster of “allies” has been assembled through a combination of coercion and bribery, and not from a genuine international concern that Iraq posses any immediate threat. The plain truth is that the Bush administration intends to invade Iraq for no other reason than to secure control of it’s oil reserves.
This fact should shock us. This war is murder and robbery in its purest form. It will cost thousands of civilian lives but let us go beyond that. When our soldiers arrive on the streets of Baghdad they will be facing the armed citizenry of Iraq. These people will be fighting, not to protect Saddam Hussein or his supposed weapons of mass destruction, rather they will be fighting to defend their homes and families and the independence of their nation against foreign invaders. Any of us would do the same. It is conceivable that we will be asking our sons and daughters to murder people literally on their own doorsteps. There is no stretch of the imagination that can frame this as self-defense.
When the fighting actually starts the call will go out to “support our troops” as if the wickedness of starting the war can be atoned for by the winning of it. Well, I am supporting our troops and all the brave people of Iraq as well, by saying no to war right now. I do not want to see our soldiers turned into dead bodies and I don’t want to see them turned into murderers and war criminals either.
