[Peace-discuss] Letter to My Dad

[Kranich, Kimberlie]

Danielle suggested I post this so here goes:

Dad,

I am against a U.S. war against Iraq. I support other countries standing up
to the warmongering rhetoric of Bush. I am for a nonviolent solution that is
international in scope.  I support stopping violence whether its one lover
beating up another or one country killing the citizens of another. I want it
stopped, but not with violence unless others means are seriously exhausted
first. Bush came out of the bullpen with fighting words. He wants a war.
That's the difference between him and most of the American public.  

I am aware of the U.S.'s economic power in the global economy and how it
uses its power to bully other countries, such as Colombia, into supporting
the U.S. position of a pre-emptive strike gainst Iraq.

My Congressional heroes with regard to Iraq are Conservative Republican Ron
Paul from Texas, progressive Democrat Barbara Lee from California and
Senator Robert Bryd. 

I support the Lee Alternative to War Amendment. The Lee alternative
amendment urges the U.S. to work through UN inspections and other diplomatic
means to ensure that Iraq is not developing weapons of mass destruction. It
would not authorize the President to use force against Iraq.

War is being sold to us like milk.  War will suck billions of dollars from
desperately needed programs in the U.S. I'm onto the President's propaganda
machine.

With regard to your questions about Hitler and Stalin, I have questions
back:

Did the U.S. ever support Hitler or Stalin in their country's wars against
other countries by supplying them with weapons and other aid to fight those
countries?

Are you not aware that in the mid-1980s the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein in
his war against Iran? 

Hitler quashed dissent.  That's how he started his murderous campaign.
Political activists were the first to be rounded up and killed by Hitler.
We must stop Bush and Rumsfeld from continuing down this path of quashing
dissent.

Did you not know that, according to Senator Bryd's website
(http://byrd.senate.gov/) the U.S. provided Iraq with its building blocks
for biological weapons?

Don't you remember the Kuwaiti woman who testified before Congress before
the Gulf War?  She said that she saw Iraqi soldiers tear Kuwaiti babies from
incubators.  It was later learned that she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti
Ambassador to the U.S. and that her story was a lie (prwatch.org).

Governments lie, especially during war. 

I believe former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter who says that Iraq has no
nuclear, biological or chemical weapons that pose an imminent threat to the
U.S. or Iraq's neighbors.  Scott Ritter also told us how UN weapons
inspectors were turned into spies.  He quit the program after that.  

Do you think Indonesian President Suharto is less evil than Saddam Hussein?
Suharto is Bush's ally. 

Osma Bin Laden was our ally, too.  We gave him money and weapons to fight
the Soviets.  Then the bully turned on us.  We reap what we sow. 

Why is the U.S. not demanding that Israel comply with UN mandates? 

Did you forget that the US dropped Agent Orange, a chemical weapon, in
Vietnam? It didn't just defoliate trees, it eventually killed our own
soldiers.

Have you forgotten that U.S. troops during the Gulf War bulldozed thousands
of surrendering Iraqis into pits burying them alive? 

Have you forgotten that the U.S. is the only country that has used nuclear
weapons, twice, against another nation?

What will Iraq look like after we bomb it and destabilize it?  Who will we
prop up as its leader and what will the consequences be?

Our foreign policy is filled with hypocrisy: "Do as I say, not as I do."
Our president is a cowboy whose language of "You're either for us or against
us" is divisive. He's not interested in building coalitions, not really. He
wants other countries to do what we say because we are the world's only
super power.

We have no right to be the world's police or to unilaterally change the
world's policy from one of containment to one of pre-emptive strikes.  We
are the world's biggest bully and if Americans don't know this, then we've
got our heads in the sand. Any unilateral action by the US against any other
country will create a new generation of haters of the U.S. 

If we pre-meptively strike Iraq, what would prevent India from pre-emptively
striking Pakistan and the other way around?  If the US can do it, so can I.
This is a dangerous slope of aggressive thinking led by the U.S.  

The only thing I can agree with you about, Dad, is that Saddam Hussein is
evil. I do not agree with our attempted method of removal of the Iraqi
dictator.  The costs are too high.

I am trying to prevent death and World War III.  I am trying to prevent the
U.S. from using another nuclear weapon.  

I am trying to expose the propaganda of the executive branch. 

I am more afraid of our war mongering than I am of any external threat. I am
more afraid of how our actions against Iraq might be catalysts for World War
3 than I am of terrorists from within or without.

If I am unfortunate enough one day to be killed, murdered or die in a
chemical or biological attack or by some punk on the street, I do not want
the perpetrator(s) to be killed in my name. Find my killers and lock them
up, but do not kill in my name. I mean it. I will defend myself and my life
and the lives of those I love against eminent danger, and if  I lose, I do
not want more violence to be done in my name. I want redemption not revenge,
if such unfortunate circumstances were ever to occur. 

I just got word from Danielle that she will be joining me the weekend I
visit.  I'll let you know more later as the date approaches.  We will want
to visit the grandparents, too.

Have fun in Wyoming.

Love,
K