An Open Letter To President Obama On Afghanistan

Dear President Obama,

Do you really want to be the new "war president"? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they've always heard is true -- that all politicians are alike. I simply can't believe you're about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn't so.

It is not your job to do what the generals tell you to do. We are a civilian-run government. WE tell the Joint Chiefs what to do, not the other way around. That's the way General Washington insisted it must be. That's what President Truman told General MacArthur when MacArthur wanted to invade China. "You're fired!," said Truman, and that was that. And you should have fired Gen. McChrystal when he went to the press to preempt you, telling the press what YOU had to do. Let me be blunt: We love our kids in the armed services, but we f*#&in' hate these generals, from Westmoreland in Vietnam to, yes, even Colin Powell for lying to the UN with his made-up drawings of WMD (he has since sought redemption).

So now you feel backed into a corner. 30 years ago this past Thursday (Thanksgiving) the Soviet generals had a cool idea -- "Let's invade Afghanistan!" Well, that turned out to be the final nail in the USSR coffin.

There's a reason they don't call Afghanistan the "Garden State" (though they probably should, seeing how the corrupt President Karzai, whom we back, has his brother in the heroin trade raising poppies). Afghanistan's nickname is the "Graveyard of Empires." If you don't believe it, give the British a call. I'd have you call Genghis Khan but I lost his number. I do have Gorbachev's number though. It's + 41 22 789 1662. I'm sure he could give you an earful about the historic blunder you're about to commit.

With our economic collapse still in full swing and our precious young men and women being sacrificed on the altar of arrogance and greed, the breakdown of this great civilization we call America will head, full throttle, into oblivion if you become the "war president." Empires never think the end is near, until the end is here. Empires think that more evil will force the heathens to toe the line -- and yet it never works. The heathens usually tear them to shreds.

Choose carefully, President Obama. You of all people know that it doesn't have to be this way. You still have a few hours to listen to your heart, and your own clear thinking. You know that nothing good can come from sending more troops halfway around the world to a place neither you nor they understand, to achieve an objective that neither you nor they understand, in a country that does not want us there. You can feel it in your bones.

I know you know that there are LESS than a hundred al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan! A hundred thousand troops trying to crush a hundred guys living in caves? Are you serious? Have you drunk Bush's Kool-Aid? I refuse to believe it.

Your potential decision to expand the war (while saying that you're doing it so you can "end the war") will do more to set your legacy in stone than any of the great things you've said and done in your first year. One more throwing a bone from you to the Republicans and the coalition of the hopeful and the hopeless may be gone -- and this nation will be back in the hands of the haters quicker than you can shout "tea bag!"

Choose carefully, Mr. President. Your corporate backers are going to abandon you as soon as it is clear you are a one-term president and that the nation will be safely back in the hands of the usual idiots who do their bidding. That could be Wednesday morning.

We the people still love you. We the people still have a sliver of hope. But we the people can't take it anymore. We can't take your caving in, over and over, when we elected you by a big, wide margin of millions to get in there and get the job done. What part of "landslide victory" don't you understand?

Don't be deceived into thinking that sending a few more troops into Afghanistan will make a difference, or earn you the respect of the haters. They will not stop until this country is torn asunder and every last dollar is extracted from the poor and soon-to-be poor. You could send a million troops over there and the crazy Right still wouldn't be happy. You would still be the victim of their incessant venom on hate radio and television because no matter what you do, you can't change the one thing about yourself that sends them over the edge.

The haters were not the ones who elected you, and they can't be won over by abandoning the rest of us.

President Obama, it's time to come home. Ask your neighbors in Chicago and the parents of the young men and women doing the fighting and dying if they want more billions and more troops sent to Afghanistan. Do you think they will say, "No, we don't need health care, we don't need jobs, we don't need homes. You go on ahead, Mr. President, and send our wealth and our sons and daughters overseas, 'cause we don't need them, either."

What would Martin Luther King, Jr. do? What would your grandmother do? Not send more poor people to kill other poor people who pose no threat to them, that's what they'd do. Not spend billions and trillions to wage war while American children are sleeping on the streets and standing in bread lines.

All of us that voted and prayed for you and cried the night of your victory have endured an Orwellian hell of eight years of crimes committed in our name: torture, rendition, suspension of the bill of rights, invading nations who had not attacked us, blowing up neighborhoods that Saddam "might" be in (but never was), slaughtering wedding parties in Afghanistan. We watched as hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were slaughtered and tens of thousands of our brave young men and women were killed, maimed, or endured mental anguish -- the full terror of which we scarcely know.

When we elected you we didn't expect miracles. We didn't even expect much change. But we expected some. We thought you would stop the madness. Stop the killing. Stop the insane idea that men with guns can reorganize a nation that doesn't even function as a nation and never, ever has.

Stop, stop, stop! For the sake of the lives of young Americans and Afghan civilians, stop. For the sake of your presidency, hope, and the future of our nation, stop. For God's sake, stop.

Tonight we still have hope.

Tomorrow, we shall see. The ball is in your court. You DON'T have to do this. You can be a profile in courage. You can be your mother's son.

We're counting on you.

Yours,
Michael Moore
[e-mail]
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. There's still time to have your voice heard. Call the White House at 202-456-1111 or email the President.

 

Comments

[EricIndiana]

Well put. Although we all knew what he was going to say. Here was my letter to President Obama right after that speech:

http://daisybrain.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/advice-on-afghanistan/

[Center-of-the-Bird]

Michael, how can you feign surprise? Disappointment sure but not surprise.

All through his campaign our President said he would withdraw our troops from Iraq and concentrate on Afghanistan and the bordering countries. What's that mean? It means he's not too concerned on the details of the withdrawal but he is planning on escalating in Afghanistan. I heard that (put the pieces together), your certainly smart enough to figure that out, what happened?

Now you want to pull your support, why, because you were only listening to what you wanted to hear?

I appreciate all you've done with your documentaries, taking the heat while exposing the truth but c'mon man, give up the ship, quit?

[mperl95]

Michael Moore has good points, but at this moment to pull out or decrease after his military advisors informed him of security issues there, then he will do a disservice Afghanistan at this time.
I believe this President has a time line to pull out.
If he pulled out now this would be worst then the North and South Vietnam situation.
Decreasing with the low morale of military man power would make it unsafe for our troops already in place.
Pulling out now is not the option, sending a message to those that gave their lives, and came back disabled, that this was for nothing.
We should of finished the war in Afghanistan and never went into Iraq at all.
Securing the borders of Afghanistan and having the manpower we could of ended this long ago.
We as a nation lost sight of our true purpose and that was to get Osama Bin Laden.

[foresight]

Honey you are apparently very misinformed about what the true motives are for the Fake Wars. Go to the tail and see whats wagging the dog and check out whose selling the substances in his bloodstream.

[drxcreatures]

I guess he loses the nobel peace prize.

[opsudrania]

Michael, I admire your feelings, but I am afraid there are no Eutopias or Shangri-Las and there will never exist at anytime. It might sound depresing but it is the fact of life. Mahatma Gandhi proclaimed to show your other cheek if you are hit on one side. Pakistan is constantly hitting the other cheek of India for the last 62 years for the grace shown to them by not invading and fully accessing the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir to India. You are aware that Maharaja Hari Singh and Sheikh Abdullah - both agreed and the Instrument of Accession was signed between Maharaja Hari Singh and Lord Mountbatten, the then Viceroy of India. Yet Jinnah invaded the JK on 26 October 1947 illegally. Now they have created the controversy and engaged in the needless war.
This has now taken the shape of a complex issue of radical Islamic war spread all over the globe and threatening the existence of the Universe. Islam has to clarify, if it represents a religious ideology or the socio-political ideology. The aims and ambitions; the working manners of both the ideologies are completely different. They mix up and project themselves as it suits them. This is not on and not acceptable. The very basic teaching of Islam through the Mosque-Madarsa complex has to be radically revised and made transparent to the world society. They have the responsibility of alleviating the fears of the global society, which is rightly feeling threatened.

[pjw5552]

Michael, your arguments are based on your own viewpoint not understanding the opposite view.
You assume we fight wars to win something. No, we fight wars to PREVENT or SUPPORT something.
You assume support of war is open ended. No, war is delimited by an objective and a conclusion based on attaining that objective.
Read the Senate Foreign Intelligence Report on Tora Bora. This Afghan war never obtained its objective because getting rid of bin Laden was an afterthought. Bush almost from the beginning was interested in Saddam Hussein.
You assume if Karzai is corrupt it means all efforts to seek a US objective become null and void. Obama must address that issue and weigh it in his decisions but he cannot define US objectives solely on the politics of other nations.
You assume if war is bad or lasted too long (because of prior poor leadership) the President must terminate it immediately. No, the president must determine why the objective of the war was not achieved, whether it is still achievable or not and if it is best to stop or continue but change directions.
War is not the solution to problems but a reflection of them. The solution comes when the war ends and people decide how to move forward. Your mistake is to believe that packing up and leaving automatically solves the problem. No, packing up and leaving (which is what the US did after Russia left) allows others to decide how to the problems are addressed.

[Levittown]

Obama will know in six months if they will " stand up so we can stand down ". If they want freedom they must fight for it now. We don't have the men or the money to waste so tragically. We did it in Viet Nam and in Iraq, America will be reduced to just another loser in the history of Afghanistan. Learn from history. It is as open a story you can find. It is not a fable or a fairy tale. There will be blood .
Much,much blood.

[jsehgal]

An Afghan said this to an American: You got the clocks, we got the time. Time is what Obama ain't got. I already feel sorry for the legacy he is creating for himself.

[mbaty]

All Hail the great Michael Moore.
Run for president. We will vote you in.
Then you can make a movie about what really happens when you are president. Because I don't want to believe that this is Obama's decision. I'd like to believe his hands are somewhat tied by the powers that be in the miltary etc. We can't blame one person, but unfortunately, Obama holds the title of President, and, right or wrong, we are looking to him to use whatever power he has wisely.

[IDIOTA]

Was Alexander the Great the last general to be successful in Afghanistan? Other -- Michael, when the Soviets invaded, they were trying to conquer in order to establish a trade route for getting oil from their holdings in Central Asia to Europe. US funding of the anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan helped maintain the oil market status quo. If you look at the 21st century conquest map, it appears that only Iran stands in the way of building a pipeline.

[equianimi]

"Stop the insane idea that men with guns can reorganize a nation that doesn't even function as a nation and never, ever has. "

Actually Afghanistan was a fairly decent nation before it was invaded by the USSR. There was a day when Afghanistan had hope and a decent amount of functionality. It may have been the USSR invasion or it may have been Reagan giving the Taliban weapons and money.

[MxPt]

The USSR was lured into Afghanistan by none other than Obama's mentor at Columbia University and current foreign policy adviser Brzezinski . It became known as the Brzezinski Trap. Brzezinski is a master geopolitical strategist who encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot, who then murdered about 20% of his people.

[Hartwell]

I am not a fan of war at all. This for me a one of those that I will just never understand. Whatever is going on it must be serious as it requiresthe loss of life.

I am a supporter of the President but this one is rough. But on the other I am quite sure I could not handle the truth.

http://www.semiimportant.blogspot.com/

[Hollypop]

I admire Micheal Moore for his courageous outspeaking. And I admire Obama for trying to find a solution to all this..but we're dealing with fanatics here people who don't even care about their own people and who create anarchy wherever the are.
The most important thing is to stabilise Afghanistans government and protect it's people and they can't do it alone.. It's wrong to believe that there are only 100 or so Taliban in Afghanistan ...maybe now but if the US pulls out before the government is stable then they will all flood back in and fight for control...and they fight dirty.
It's obvious now that Bush didn't want to catch Bin laden and instead wanted control of Irak's oil... the rest of us know that if Bin laden succeeds in Afghanistan the cancer will grow and the Taliban will eventually hold the world to ransom.
I agree with M.M. but the alternatives are unthinkable.
This is a REAL war not a MADE UP one, but MM is right for doubting we can win it easily.

[Tom43528]

To quote the philosopher Townshend, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

[Bobotheclown]

Something that never seems to be mentioned is the fact that this kind of incursion has never worked before. Incursions widen wars and that is their real purpose. (The 'success" of the Iraq incursion is an illusion based on the fact that we PAID the enemy to stop fighting us! When the money stops, the war will start.) Moreover, every value that is being talked about, from nation building, to our own national security, will be negatively impacted when we anger another entire country with a cruel and corrupt occupation. Actions have repercussions and when we do wrong we are going to pay. 9/11 itself was payback for previous insults to a culture that we do not understand. Bin Laden has made his reasons for attacking us perfectly clear and has also described what he wants to see before he calls off his Al Queda. The pullout that he requests would not effect our national security in anyway, but it would effect the profits of oil companies. And that, I guess, is Bin Ladens point. He has more control of our military than the President has, and that, I guess, is another of his points. There are ways out of this that advantage the American people but we do not seem to have a representative at the table to present them for us. But Bin Laden and his followers are in this for life. They will continue to make their points until eventually they are heard.

[Spider1982]

As many others have said already, President Obama had already said that he supported fighting the terrorists in Afghanistan and that he thought the resources in Iraq should be allocated to there many times during his debates with McCain. I don't understand why everyone is freaking out at his decision. I guess they were not listening when he said it??