An Open Letter to the President

Dear President Bush,

Over the past three years and nine months I have watched you pour money and soldiers—our countrymen—into the conflict in Iraq. In the beginning, when I protested the war, you shrugged your shoulders: you didn't seem to care that hundreds of thousands of your employers (American citizens), were standing up, making noise, and demanding that you consider the truths of the situation ... or at least acknowledge them.

Since then, you have spent six to eight billion dollars a month in Iraq (it works out to something like 8.3 million dollars an hour or 200 million dollars a day). More than 3,000 mostly young Americans have been killed—a number I'm sure you'll recognize since you worked so hard to link Saddam Hussein and the tragedy of September 11th. Since invading Iraq about 100,000 citizens—half of them women and children—have been killed as a direct result of our invasion. However noble your crusade, these numbers don't lie. (A few reports estimate the civilian death toll at more than 600,000, but they probably forgot to carry the one.)

Now I find myself, once again, asking you to acknowledge some basic truths. I think you'll sleep better if you do. And who knows, maybe we can save some lives.

Having studied the situation on the ground, as I'm sure you have, you no doubt understand the complex and volatile situation that the Sunni Shia division in Iraq posses. Isn't it frightening that the country can be broken down into three, distinct regions (don't forget the Kurds)? It's almost as if the three regions could exist autonomously, although I'm sure you have your reasons for preventing that from occurring. The United Kingdom did, after all, arbitrarily draw the borders of Iraq after World War I. I suppose you don't want their gin-induced creativity undermined.

Since you are backing the Shiite majority government using our treasure and our ground forces (an interesting choice considering how beholden we are to our Sunni ally Saudi Arabia (Al Qaeda is also Sunni—boy, this can get confusing)), I'm sure you can acknowledge the volatility of the situation. What a pain that we now have to act as referee during the Iraqi Civil War.

As you often remind me whenever you talk to me through my television, you feel a profound loss for each and every soldier killed in Iraq. I'm sure you are proportionally grief stricken for the 20,000 soldiers who have been wounded there.

Considering these basic truths, you're probably beginning to understand that we are losing in Iraq. But I'm confused: I hear you are about to deploy another 21,500 troops into Baghdad and the Anbar province, even though our military leaders and all but one hyper-conservative think tank insists doing so will change nothing—except of course provide more cannon fodder.

I think you may need medication, but there's no time for that now. It seems nothing can prevent you from throwing another handful (proportionally speaking) of soldiers into a brutal situation, a spiraling civil war, and a lost cause. Luckily for you, the American people would tar and feather the Democrats if they actually stopped funding your middle east temper tantrum.

You have my condolences. I know it must be hard for you to realize that your pet war has been wrong all along. I could say "I told you so," but that's not very polite. It must be hard for you to hear that even a majority of the US forces in Iraq think the war is wrong and we should pull out. And I know your Nixonian approval ratings must keep you up at night—even yankees masquerading as cowboys have feelings.

Fortunately for you, God told me to write you this letter. He instructed me to remind you that heaven is pretty full these days, and the souls are too young. He's not happy with what your policy has done and He's getting a little tired of that defensive, swaggered way you talk to the press and the American people. I know that since you have shaped your foreign policy upon conversations with Our Dear Lord in the past, you will take my request most seriously.

God and the American people are united (along with 10 Republican congressional members and almost all of those darn Democrats—not to mention those pesky military leaders): Do not escalate the war in Iraq. Do not throw another 6.8 billion dollars on the fire. Instead, why don't you do something smart for a change: Acknowledge the fact that we have lost this war. Bring our men and women back home, and plug the fiscal hemorrhage in our treasury.

Thank you for your time in reading this.

A Loyal American,


Robert Judge Woerheide
San Diego, CA