I sincerely hope President Obama listens to Michael Moore's plea for reason, sanity, and justice and steps back from the abyss to find humane ways of dealing with conflicting interests rather than escalating the fighting. However, I have little expectation that this will actually transpire. I haven't had much faith in Obama since he ran a campaign heavy to emotional rhetoric and light on actual policy. Then when he stood in front of the Constitution of the United States enshrined in the National Archives, the document that explicitly enumerates certain rights, among which are habeas corpus, and announced his intention to set up a program of indefinite "preventive" detention, I just about fell out of my chair. Yes, there is an audacity to the man, but of despair, not hope.

"We are a civilian-run government." Sometimes, I wonder. Thank you Michael Moore...I echo your plea of "Stop! Stop! Stop!"

I have received word that my friends in Orange County, New York, just south of my own Ulster County, with whom I have arranged previous West Point graduation protests against Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, have planned a protest presence at West Point during Obama's speech there. If you live within any kind of reasonable commute to West Point you should show up. And anyone who lives in the NYC commute area, which is something like 18 million people, all live within 90 minutes of West Point, which isn't enough time to excuse failing to show up. Even Philly is less than three hours, Hartford and Albany less than two. No excuses. Please quickly spread the following logistical details, grab three friends, and show up. This is a legal, peaceful demonstration arranged with local authorities, so there is no risk. It's purpose is to do exactly what Michael Moore just described -- to announce to Obama that anti-war Americans are officially assigning him ownership of the war in Afghanistan as the price for this announcement, and will treat him accordingly. West Point is in Highland Falls, NY.

"President Obama has chosen Orange County, West Point, as the site of his speech THIS Tuesday night. We MUST RESPOND WITH AS LARGE A PRESENCE AS IS POSSIBLE. THAT MEANS YOU. Each of us much make maximum effort to be in Highland Falls by 6:00 p.m. Tuesday night. Come via Route 218 and park and walk to Veterans Park. Bring a flashlight and a candle. Bring your friends. Bring your energy as we will rally and then engage in a candlelight/flashlight lit march to the gates and back to the park. WE MUST BE HEARD, RAIN OR SHINE..."

Driving directions:

Coming from North of West Point: NYS Thruway to Exit 17, Newburgh. Follow signs to 9W South. There are two entrances to the town from 9W. The first one is where Rt. 218 cuts into Highland Falls and it will take you into Main St. in 1.1 miles. The second, about mile and a half further south on 9W connects directly with Main St. (Rt. 218) and you go north a mile or so.

Coming from or through NYC: George Washington Bridge to Palisades Parkway to exit for 9W North 2 miles to exit for 218, take 218 right into downtown Highland Falls.

Coming from west or south of NYC: NYS Thruway to exit 13W to Palisades Parkway, then same as above.

Spread the word, now. No excuses. Show up. Be heard tomorrow and start the new movement.

Mr Moore is certainly right. It is utterly useless from the very beginning to wage a war against Afghanistan. It only serves the benefit of military industrial complex but nothing else. After the WWII, it is the tendency of US elites to wage war against any small nation to enhance the military hardware business. Even this current sensible president turns to be powerless. It's a pity that in a democratic nation a democratically elected highest executive becomes a poodle in their hands. So I do believe that it is time for the citizens to come out and wage a massive peaceful demonstration. That will definitely end that attitude for ever. Mr Obama is going to send more troops and synergize the war. When the economy will be fully crushed then automatically it would stop. So the history repeats. Very unfortunate indeed.

3 little words. Military Industrial Complex.

Mike, get a grip, you speak as though we had some small degree of democratic leverage on our hood ornament in the White House. That was gone long ago, Buddy. When JFK was ambushed in Dallas in the most suspicious of circumstances and we were in a land war in Asia within a year and a half, what did we do? When leading political figures of the sixties were gunned down in succession, King, RFK, Malcolm, Wallace, what did we do? When our industry was being whittled down to nothing by NAFTA and other "free trade" treaties and most of our fellow citizens were being forced into debt peonage, what did we do? When our election in 2000 was clearly stolen by the "Supreme" Court, what did we do? When our Constitution was rendered voluntary by the panic created by an "attack" that still has no rational official explanation, what did we do? When we entered into a permanent state of war for reasons that were proven to be total lies, what did we do? Pardon the repitition but the time to speak of this problem as though electoral efforts might solve it is long past, might have been able to do that forty years ago. Now, if there were any hope of waking our sleepwalking fellow citizens from their consensus trance, the solution is not in electoral politics but in boycott, non-cooperation and the general strike. Good luck, Mike, you've done your best, much appreciated.
Tony Vodvarka

Mr. Obama was elevated to the Presidency by our oligarchy because of his dapper good looks, mesmerizing oratorical skills and complete and utter SPINELESSNESS.

He was the perfect leading man.

And the money-masters who orchestrated his ascension are making him dance like there's no tomorrow.

McCain couldn't have sold the masses on continued bank bailouts, get-out-of-jail free cards for Bush-era war criminals and empire expansion.

Stupid and doddering could no longer close the sale.

Beer drinking morons were out.

Smart was in.

Enter the naive community organizer from Lincoln land.

Behind the cover of his academic background and color of his skin Obama is wheeling and dealing at breathtaking speed.

He's doing exactly what anyone WHO WAS PAYING ATTENTION knew he'd do.

Dance, Dance, Dance.

Moore still hasn't figured out that he and the rest of us useful idiots who voted for Obama have been punk'd.

This letter sickens me. Moore should edit this half-assed attempt at levity with the rage that most people with critical-thinking skills have felt for months.

The characteristic of Michael Moore that I've always appreciated is his refusal to deal in subtleties.

Moore is correct to call Obama out on this matter even as Moore knows - as we all do - that Obama is going to make the wrong decision again.

q

If we were in Afghanistan to "finish the job" as the President says, I could see some chance of turning this wrong direction in foreign policy around. Truth is we are there for the sake of an oil pipeline we are building and the country's strategic location between Iran and Russia/China. When economic theft and imperialism are the reasons for being in a foreign country, the only people who will get us out of the country will be that country's people themselves.

To quote that great hero of the conservatives Ronald Reagan, there you go again. Moore tells Obama of the "multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign" and who may now become his "disillusioned cynics." He follows this up by saying that "I simply can't believe that you're about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn't so."

What Moore fails to note is that he was part of those people who had such abiding hope in Obama. Obama clearly said during the 2008 campaign that attention should have been paid to the so-called good war in Afghanistan. Despite having told the American people this, Michael Moore is simply shocked, shocked! that Barack Obama would actually decide to do what he said he would do when he was running for president. It never seems to have dawned on Moore to have listened to what Dennis Kucinich said during the campaign and that is that if you vote and support for the lesser of two evils you still end up with an evil. Moore had an opportunity to throw his support and influence behind a genuine peace candidate during the presidential campaign. He could have warned the American people that Obama was not what he seemed to be. Instead he became one of those foolish people who ended up endorsing a war president like Barack Obama. Michael Moore makes thoughtful and insightful films. Unfortunately, with this latest exhibition of buyers' remorse, one finds that his politics leaves a hell of a lot to be desired.