by Jayne Lyn Stahl
 While the odds are probably better of getting a response from Santa, there are a few things I'd like to say if you can spare a minute or two before you address the nation tomorrow night.
Respectfully, for openers, whoever told you that "the best defense is a good offense" was misleading you. To mislead one person is unfortunate, but to mislead a nation is a crime.
It seems you may have pushed the snooze button by mistake, this past November, and gone back to sleep when the citizens of your country exercised their legal, and democratic option to vote, something that has been become vestigial in recent years, and to vote overwhelmingly for a change of direction, and movement towards peace.in Iraq, and globally.
Your fellow Americans registered their opposition not only to your anemic attempts at a rationale for combat, but to your obstinate plans to perpetuate, and escalate a futile, and irresponsible troop commitment. The politics of preemptive war has become little more than a high stakes poker game, and one which the whole world loses.
More importantly, your government has proven itself to be
as unresponsive to the needs, and desires of the least and greatest
among us as it is irresponsible. Leaders who make laws to cover
themselves when they break laws are not what George Washington, John
Adams, and Thomas Jefferson had in mind.
When the default position is defensiveness, there is no chance for real
diplomacy, and without diplomacy, there can only be a global
battlefield, and more blood shed. Those whose heroic efforts brought us
the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights would be
horrified by the abuse of power we have witnessed in the past 6 years,
and the utter, unparalleled contempt with which the public trust, and
the inaugural oath have been handled.
Yes, yes, we need commanders-in-chief who don't buckle under stress who
don't take to the bottle like Ulysses S. Grant or to their bed in
despair like Abraham Lincoln, but one who bears the awesome, and grave
responsibility of sending our young men and women into harm's way owes
it to them to listen to what his generals have to say, as well as to
his nation's conscience.
Now that the umbilical cord has been cut, Congress will yet have the
chance to do what their constituents elected them to do, and work
sedulously to counteract the toxicity that continues to try to pass
itself off as a war on terror.
No one on earth would want to close their eyes, and rest their head on
your pillow tonight. The weight of the world is on your shoulders. We
will all be watching, and hoping that you will decide to do what is
right not for your minions, not for Chevron, not for Halliburton, but
for the ever growing number of those who have given, and continue to
give their lives.
It's not too late to change course. History is counting on you. Do it
now, while there's still time. Do it now, send the troops home from
Iraq, and sit down with Iran. It's time to make progress not war.
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