Mr. President:
The lives of my friends and family are at stake, simply put, and I need your assurance, as our leader for the next four years, that you will use your power over them wisely.
They have chosen to sign that dotted line, to “protect and serve”, but the rhetoric of patriotism is a powerful impetus to put human beings at risk to fight battles that may not have a noble purpose.
And whatever their label, “civilian,” “conscientious objector,” or “soldier,” they are still loved ones, and their lives are not to be squandered.
To quote Benjamin Franklin, “There never was a good war or a bad peace.” We are now trapped in a bloody, horrific war, proving that in spades, with the threat of more war and more death and more violence looming just over the horizon, like a demon of death readying the scythe.
Whether liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, left, right, or middle, it’s hard to ignore the fact that war is inherently about pain, suffering, loss, and death. The entire purpose of war is to harm others, or be harmed in the process.
And unfortunately, it is hard to remember sometimes just how tragic war is as we sit high and dry here in the United States, with the explosions, blood, and tears of loss and pain half a world away.
Mr. President, the lives of our loved ones are in your hands, as well as the future of our country. I only ask you, as our leader for the next four years, to keep in mind the consequences of your actions and decisions.
Don’t let the shining potential of wealth and fraternal camaraderie cloud your judgment in military, financial, and human rights decisions. You have many decisions to make, many aspects of America to consider, but particularly, I want my friends and family alive.
You claim to be protecting us against the threat of terrorism, but the threat of war looms even greater in my mind, because as much as you try to tell us the opposite, terrorism is not what we’re facing right now, but the war in Iraq, and the potential for war in Iran, Syria, North Korea, and other areas of the world that we are suddenly playing Big Brother to.
If the threat of terrorism has been defeated, if we are truly safer as you have told us on countless occasions, then why is there still the looming doubt of my friends and loved ones futures, but now due to combat and not a rogue plane or a bomb in one of our cities?
I can only assume that in a position of power, being fed death tolls and injuries as dry, impersonal statistics, innocuous lines on a map representing the march of our fellow Americans, and countless “risk analyses” that have consequences measured in lives, that the face of war begins to melt away and become nothing more than a numbers game.
It’s hard to remember the toll that it really takes on families, or that numbers don’t always tell us the psychological suffering and dread for those we care about.
In short, politicians are so distanced from the subject that all it is is a math puzzle to them, slightly more realistic to them than “If a train left Chicago going 50 miles per hour.”
President Bush, I implore you, I beg you – while making decisions regarding wars, battles, police actions, or what have you, consider the individual effect. Don’t just look at the big picture, whatever that might be.
Whatever your reasons for war are, and that is not the point of this discussion, never forget that the lives of my friends and family members are at stake.
You have not been granted a mandate, you have been given a duty, and with that duty comes power and responsibility, including the power to command men and women to kill and be killed, to live and die at the nod of your hand, to charge into impossible battles with nary a glance. Keep this in mind. Weigh this very carefully.
And never, ever forget that your power to control and command could leave many, many more Americans standing at graveside, confused and helpless in a world that has taken the ones they love.
Signed,
Kevin A. Sesock
A United States Citizen
Originally printed in the Daily O’Collegian, November 16th, 2004.
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