Open Letter to General David Petraeus

Headquarters
Multinational Force-Iraq
Baghdad, Iraq
APOAE09342-1400
Baghdad
Iraq

Dear General Petraeus,

So wily old George Bush has got you smack in the middle, eh! You're damned if you say things are going well in September and damned if you say they aren't. But what does it really matter? Bush is using you as the patsy. He couldn't care less what your September report reports. The decision about Iraq's future is not a warrior's concern. I mean, is it a sovereign state or not? Apropos, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki himself shrugged off your alleged report by saying that American troops can "leave any time they want" while adviser Shiite lawmaker Hassan al-Suneid claimed that "the situation looks as if it is an experiment in an American laboratory." Anway, what does that have to do with you as the general of a foreign army caught in the middle of a civil war? And don't think either the US Congress or the US people can help you out. Neither has a clue about what the real problem is.

You doubtless know how Bush thinks by this time. Or doesn't think but "believes." "I believe we can succeed in Iraq, and I know we must," he told the press on July 12th. Now believing is not knowing in my lexicon. The sentence is either meant to confuse the listener-how can he "know" a "belief"?-or his mind just isn't synchronized to put it kindly. "I don't think Congress ought to be running this war" he also said at his press conference followed by "I think they ought to be funding the troops."

First off, General, you're not fighting a war. You're trying to maintain an occupation started by an illegal invasion of a sovereign country. Who's your "enemy"? The "insurgents?" The "terrorists?" Or the Shias or Sunnis? Whoa, hold on! You command soldiers, troops, tanks, combat helicopters, battleships off shore, and the humongous supply chains clear back to Kansas and points north, west, south and east. "Clearing out" homes of Iraqi citizens doesn't seem quite consistent with your generalship training, General. Now is it? For instance, can you spot an "insurgent" or "terrorist" from a civilian?

Now how about that "funding" problem. It's now grown to $10 billion a month. When are the US taxpayers gonna wise up to this theft? (Has anybody calculated what the carbon-footprint is generated by that hunk of loot?) The congress is elected by the people and the people are telling their congressmen/women to get those husbands, fathers, sons and daughters outa there pronto. But does Bush really care? He himself never left US shores as a soldier. He barely left US shores as a civilian before he could climb aboard Airforce One. The clue to his indifference is in his brutally callous statement that he will be "judged by history" and not by his contemporaries. The mothers, especially of the fallen sons and daughters, "should be outraged," as Helen Thomas put it.

You see, General, I have the advantage of being neither in the US Congress nor a part of the US electorate. So it's easy for me to be objective and neutral. It's like looking down from outer space. Or at least from the Space Station rattling around the planet every 90 minutes at 1179 mph. Those space travelers can't even see Iraq much less the "Middle East." It's all one big mess of land and a bigger mess of water to them and yours truly.

Put bluntly, you have no choice but to resign your commission forthwith. The war is a phony. You've been had, in spades. You've got to bug out. Don't worry, you'd not be the first one. So many 3 and 4 stars have blinked out before Bush's disastrous mistakes, you'd be in excellent and historic company. So why be the fall guy for a third-rate, inexperienced and phony veteran who never saw an enemy soldier, who is illegitimately placed in the Oval Office ludicrously wearing a commander-in-chief's hat and with peacock struttings, putting the onus on you whose career is to fight wars and not destroy the remaining civilian remains of a state which your former buddies-in-arms invaded-to bail him out? Don't you realize yet that however you present that September report, Bush cannot change his deadly course. With 3650+ humans wearing US uniforms already dead-Who'se counting the Iraqi civilians and refugees now abroad?-as the saying goes, "Who will be the last soldier dying before his buddies climb aboard their cargo ships homeward bound?"

But I'm not just a naysayer. Far from it. There is a way out. Guess where? It's up! Ever hear of human rights, General? Ever hear of world citizenship or world law or world government? No? Well, read on. First, world peace is not a chimera; it's a necessity since August 6, 1945. Second, sorry but your killing profession is obsolete. It's based on dysfunction; not function like, for instance, the Universal Postal Union or kids sitting in front of their computer screens watching the Hubble telescope opening up a minuscule dot in cosmic space and, after ten days, counting 5,000 or so galaxies where there were none before. Yup, General Petraeus, it's one tiny world ALREADY! No kidding! Hey, I'm typing this letter on my G5 iMac and when I finish, I'll put it in a PDF format and send it out WORLDWIDE instantaneously. From my blog: "Views From My Space."

Shucks, no big deal. Anyone can do it. Kids 5-years-old fire emails to friends 7000 miles away chatting or getting answers to their homework. So tell brother Bush, "It's ONE WORLD, George, and I'm joining it before you go shizoid and push the N-button. I'm a father too, you know, with two kids, a boy and girl. And they're not responsible for our stupidities."

So the bottom line, General, is that, in this 21st century, it's a new ballgame. Einstein was right: "Imagination is more important than knowledge." We've IMAGINED a new government way back in 1953: The World Government of World Citizens. Why not? We're the people. It's our world. And like the Declaration says: "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government." Call us foolish, utopic or just plain crazy. But then look at YOUR position RIGHT NOW. Is it sane, correct, rational, moral? Oh yes, let's talk morality too. Your job, General David Petraeus is killing, right? Moral? I don't think so. Remember that old jingle, "Do unto others, etc.?" Sure I killed too, at age 26 as a B-17 bomber pilot in WWII. (No disrespect, but you were a gleam in your father's eye). And my brother, Bud, did too from the USS Buck, a tincan destroyer which incidentally got blown to hell at Salerno. So you're part of the same old killing fields, General, only now they threaten humanity. And we, the world's people, simply can't afford you anymore either fiscally, professionally or politically.

In short, we need you and your comrades-in-arms out of those deadman's uniforms.

Please think about it-hard. That's an order-from the global front!

Yours in one world,

Garry Davis
World Citizen

P.S. The Guardian in the UK (16 July, MacAskill and Borger) headlines "Cheney Pushes Bush to Act on Iran." With 18 months left on his presidency, Bush noted in the above-mentioned press conference "I will be able to say I looked in the mirror and made decisions based on principle, not based on politics, and that is important to me." Are you prepared, General Petraeus, to obey Bush's order to preemptively invade Iran, perhaps with nuclear "bunker blasters," so that in his retirement he can look in his mirror with self-gratification, when uncounted thousands of his fellow humans lay dead and others are contaminated with deadly and permanent radiation, due to his "virtuous principles"?

Cc: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
President George W. B ush
Vice-President Richard Cheney
Secretary-of-State Condoleezza Rice
Senator Patrick Leahy
Senator Bernie Sanders
Representative Peter Welch
Ban ki-Moon, Secretary-General, United Nations
Dr. Francis Boyle, World Court of Human Rights