Dear Mr President,
It occurred that at this time when Americans have celebrated with family and
friends, said individual prayers of thanks for the bounties granted during
the year, you might have been a bit challenged, given the gargantuan
disasters and tragedies your policies have engendered. And of course a
little local difficulty at the mid-term elections and growing mutterings of
impeachment growing from various quarters.
Incidentally, no pun was intended over 'bounties', I was not talking about
oil in Iraq, gas pipelines in Afghanistan and the murderous bounty hunting
of the soldiers of whom you are Commander in Chief (buck stopping and all
that stuff) or bounties for your pals in Halliburton, Carlyle, Bechtel etc.,
etc., and the raiding of Iraq's entire national coffers. Heaven forbid one
should be so cheap with words.
America's archives have some memorable words. George Washington, speaking of
Thanksgiving celebrations on 26th November 1789, gave thanks for the gift
of: '... peaceably establishing a government for (the) safety and happiness
' of the nation.
On 3rd October 1863, Abraham Lincoln asked: ' God to care for all those who
have become widows, orphans, mourners, sufferers ...'
Given the ' widows and orphans ...' created by your policies perhaps you
were looking for mea culpas - rather than thanks - to God. Respectfully,
here are a few ideas.
1. First, obviously, as a professed believer, to the Supreme Being, for
invoking His name in demented decisions. He who instructed (for believers)
forgiveness, the love of thine enemy and above all: 'thou shalt not
kill'. He had a bit to say about not coveting that of others, too. For
denigrating His name, and declaring you acted on His instructions. Mea
culpa?*
2. Since your ultimate political loyalty is to the people of America - and
your country is now regarded as the biggest threat to peace and Americans
the most despised peoples in many global polls - a mea culpa that their
'safety and happiness' may not be taken for granted, for possibly decades to
come - anywhere?
3. For a perception now written on demonstrators' placards: ' War is the only
way Americans learn geography.' For the deviant perverts, the torture,
murders, the masochism of Abu Ghraib. For the disappeared in an illegal
obscenity: Guantanamo. For one man who represents the Guantanization of
America itself : U.S. cancer specialist, Dr. Rafil Dhafir, who cared for his
patients so deeply, that he paid for their treatment himself, if they could
not afford insurance and were unable to afford therapy. An Iraqi, with
American citizenship who has lived in America for thirty years, he raised
money and contributed to one a half million dollars worth of medicines for
Iraqis, over the embargo years (1990-2003) when children were dying of often
easily curable ailments for want of simple medications. For this he has been
jailed for twenty two years. 'You have 'criminalized compassion.' ** Mea
Culpas?
4. For the destruction of Afghanistan, one of the poorest nations on earth,
whose people posed no threat to anyone. For poisoning that nation and your
own and 'allied' soldiers with depleted uranium, designated a weapon of mass
destruction (i.e.: illegal) by three U.N. Sub-Committees. For your State
Department erecting a floor to ceiling exhibition of the destruction of the
World Trade Center, in Kabul's Museum of Modern Art - the only building
standing in the district. Bewildered Afghans viewed aghast - because most
had no idea of the event or why these pictures had been visited on them, or
why they were being bombed - who then stumbled out into their very own
'ground zero, courtesy the U.S.A. Two mea culpas?
5. For the war crimes of your troops in that country, too long to list. The
slaughter of its innocents and legitimate residents. For failing to tell
Americans that the CIA brought the Taliban in to being. For overthrowing a
legitimate government - whatever it's hue. For returning the nation to a
worse state than under the Taliban, but with a bigger poppy (heroin) trade
than when they were overthrown, by orders of magnitude, set to decimate the
US, UK's and West's young. Four mea culpas?
6. For the destruction and illegal invasion of Iraq, kidnapping of a
sovereign government. For destroying the 'cradle of civilization'. For the
desecration of Qurna, believed site of the Garden of Eden; destruction of
Babylon, site of the Biblical Hanging Gardens; desecration and destruction
of parts of Ur, where the Father of your religion, Abraham (for believers)
was suckled on two fingers, one which brought forth milk and the other honey
(thus: 'land of milk and honey'.) The decimation of Kufa, first Arab
capitol, where the dove is supposed to have brought back the olive leaf to
Noah's ark, indicating the receding of the flood. And the looting of the
history of humanity. Your actions have snatched the world's heritage from
generations to be born. Sackcloth and ashes and walking barefoot over broken
glass till life's end, would not even get near an adequate mea culpa.
7. For the sins of your father, who implemented an embargo which cost one and
a half million excess Iraqi deaths, a silent holocaust (the most amongst the
under fives) continued by your phalically-challenged predecessor and
extended pitliessly by you, until your overt rather than covert, war against
children of March 2003. Broadly half the population of Iraq is under fifteen
or sixteen, depending on which Reports are read. For the responsibility for
the six hundred and fifty-five thousand further estimated excess deaths (no
doubt even that an underestimate) since the invasion. For the three thousand
estimated widows a month, responsibility for which, lies at the door of the
Oval Office. For the one hundred thousand Iraqis a month, fleeing their
homes, belongings, their all, to escape the thugs under your command and the
murderous unaccountable militias and mercenaries they brought in with them.
Perhaps, ponder on what mea culpa Abraham Lincoln would have advised.
8. For your and allied dead soldiers, other mothers' sons and daughters (not
yours or those of your Administration) who died for lies - and lies and
lies. For more use of depleted uranium and banned white phosphorous,
poisoning Iraq, the region - and your own, as you talk of their 'sacrifice'.
For the slaughtered Iraqis you deem 'not productive to count', of Falluja
(so many, their graves fill football pitches) Tel Afar, Mosul, Ramadi, Al
Quaim, Hilla, Basra, Mahmoudia, Iskanderia, Haditha, Balad - and throughout
Iraq. For the 'insurgent' and 'terrorist' babies and toddlers shot by your
soldiers, on their mothers laps in cars at roadblocks (with their families)
and in their beds. For the barbarians representing your country who
reportedly strung dead bodies as 'trophies' round their tanks in Fallujah.
For the sick old man gunned down in a Mosque in that famed 'city of
mosques'. For those across the country, slayed as they prayed, their mosques
defiled and defaced, by feces, urine and obscene grafitti, by men
representing your country. Destroyers of life, dreams, beauty, history's
jewels, 'from sea to shining sea.' Your descendants too, will surely be
burdened with mea culpas, for all time.
9. For your country consigning the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the
Child, signed by every nation on earth except yours and Somalia, to its
burial among the mass graves of the children of Iraq. For the cancers and
birth deformities in numbers of enormity, caused by the weapons used, which
will, is and has, affected the Middle East and allied troops alike and will
haunt their future generations. For selling the same weapons to your client
state, Israel (or is the 'client' the reverse?) to decimate Palestine and
Lebanon, who do not even have an army. Mea culpas are meaningless.
10. For the two hundred and sixty who died in Iraq, on
Thanksgiving Day, whilst you and your family exchanged presents and enjoyed
a banquet. 'We will track down those responsible, where ever they are', you
are fond of saying: For not looking in the mirror. For the destruction of
Baghdad's Abu Hanifa Mosque the same day, which has its genesis in 767A.D.
(That's an era, not an airplane, Sir.) For the destruction of the golden
Mosque at Samarra, which survived the Mongul hordes, but not yours - and for
that of places of beauty and reverance of which you could never even dream.
For the deaths of nearly two hundred foreign and Iraq journalists, truth
seekers in this disaster, killed by your soldiers, collaborators or under
their watch - in absolute defiance of the Geneva Convention. For the
probably five hundred towering academics and Professors, who have joined
them. For not even knowing the collective name of the people being killed in
your name, each precious life means so little: 'Iraqians' you said. No
Iraqis or Afghans have been shown such Presidential compassion. Ten is an
appropriate place to stop - multiplication by tens and tens and tens is so
simple, even the numerically challenged would realise that even mea maxima
culpas, have run out.
U.S., Presidents symbolically 'pardon' two turkeys at Thanksgiving, who then
live out their lives without threat of seasonal slaughter. No Iraqi or
Afghan has been shown such Presidential compassion.The 'liberated' rate even
below American turkeys.
By the way, Iraq's dead of your national Thursday, were buried, drenched by
torrents of tears, on the day America refers to as Black Friday. Indeed. And
as America celebrated, Native Americans held their annual memorial for their
lost country, at Plymouth Sound, where the first fundamentalists landed.
That original grab for land and assets sure set some precedent. I hope you
enjoyed the turkey (notice you didn't pop in on the troops in Iraq for a
photo op, with one which transpired to be plastic, as in 2003. But no doubt
you check constantly that those you met are not in Arlington.) Hope you
weren't ambushed by those pesky Pretzels.
I'd like to wish you a good year, but somehow I cannot find it in my heart.
Oh, and I'd think twice about Iran - as has been pointed out before, you
have an awful lot of hostages next door.
Felicity Arbuthnot is a London-based writer.
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