A Letter to the President

I just sent this email to the President (no doubt to be read by some clueless intern):

Dear Mr. President:

...I am a married parent and registered independent living in Ohio. I voted for you in the 2000 election, and I planned on voting for you in the 2004 election. This email is my notice to you that if you do not act to win the war on terror, you will not receive my vote in the upcoming election.

I am a graduate student finishing my doctorate in American Military History. I am also generally a conservative. Your administration spends too much money, in my opinion, but I think you should be commended for your handling of the economy, especially after Sept. 11. That said, let me make perfectly clear that the economy is important but still a secondary concern for me. The state exists, first and foremost, for the defense of its citizens. On that measure, and despite the lack of attacks on American soil since Sept. 11, I believe you are failing, but not for the reasons commonly stated by the media and Mr. Kerry.

I do not think I am alone in this opinion. In fact, I would wager that a vast majority of conservatives and Republicans are unhappy with your leadership in the War on Terror, only they see the alternative as worse, so they do not voice their opinions. Well, the recent uprisings in various cities in Iraq, the murder and mutilation of American civilians in Fallujah, the impunity with which Mr. Sadr both resists us and mocks our efforts to punish him, the media circus around the actions of a small number of our troops at the prison in Abu Ghraib, and your administration’s reaction today to the gruesome death of Mr. Berg, among other things, have led me to conclude that your policies and Mr. Kerry’s waffling and limp internationalism may be fairly far apart, but they are equally ineffective.

Your inability or unwillingness to use the bully pulpit to set the terms of the debate have allowed vocal groups on the fringes of the left of American society and politics to dominate the discussion. The Democrats have thus responded to this group and picked up their mantra as the key component of their campaign against you. When you do enter the debate, you do it on their terms, answering (or not effectively answering) questions and dealing (or not effectively dealing) with issues that on their face are so absurd as to be beneath the dignity of your office. Thus it has become a running joke among far too many in this country that the war in Iraq was initiated as some kind of revenge for Sadaam Hussein’s assassination attempt on your father. I do not believe that to be the case, but if it was, it would be a perfectly justifiable reason for going to war with another country. Assassination is an act of war. Is that so hard to say? Likewise, it is not the job of the President of the United States to apologize for the criminal actions of a few men and women under his command. Instead, the President should make perfectly clear that the perpetrators will be punished in fair and open trials or courts martial. Our actions, our dogged adherence to rule of law, serve as far more potent examples of our country’s greatness than any words. And in this war, an apology looks like weakness to an enemy that respects only strength.

More importantly, it is becoming increasingly clear that as the vocal antiwar crowd sets the terms of the debate unopposed, they have become the unintentional intellectual source for the strategies and tactics of our enemies. The antiwar crowd warns that terrorists would move into Iraq to attack the Americans there, and they come in in droves. The antiwar crowd warns of hostility in the Arab street in response to our attack on Iraq, and our enemies incite a murderous riot in Fallujah. The antiwar crowd warns that our allies in the invasion of Iraq will suffer for supporting us, and the terrorists attack Spain. The antiwar crowd warns that there will be retaliation for the Abu Ghraib, and the terrorists butcher Mr. Berg. As a result, those of us who support the war spend all of our time and effort arguing the details of this or that ridiculous debate, and all the while our enemies continue to exploit our inability to get out of our own way. And now the antiwar crowd warns that the terrorists might attack the United States in order to effect the outcome of the election.

The terrorists are paying attention. They must be stopped before they launch another major attack on America or its citizens, this time maybe with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. The consequences of such an attack are clear, no matter the sitting president: the American people would demand that we respond in kind, with a shocking loss of life.

Which brings me to my main point. The fact is, Mr. President, that Americans from all over the political spectrum just want you to win the war now, by any means necessary. As it stands, we are fighting the war on the terms of our enemies, a limited war of easily exploited half-measures and empty threats. But the Islamic fundamentalism that feeds our enemies is not limited, it is a totalitarian ideology actively hostile to the United States, and it refuses to be contained. As such, it must be destroyed totally. Our enemies, and the civilian populations that feed them, will never let go of that ideology unless they are convinced that the cost of making war upon the United States is utter annihilation. They will never love us for building roads and turning on the water. But we do not need their love, we need their fear and respect. They will fear us when they realize that we are able and willing to kill all of them as long as they allow a sick and violent perversion of Islam to threaten the United States. They will respect us afterward, when they are completely cowed and we help them build toward a liberal democratic future.

Such a war might seem drastic; its cost might seem steep, but all of the alternatives are worse. Better thousands die in the short term to end the war once and for all, than hundreds of thousands or millions (including thousands more Americans) in a protracted conflict. More immediately, the cost to you, Mr. President, of not dismissing the empty criticisms and unwitting soft treason of the antiwar crowd, of not decisively winning the war on terror, will be my vote this November. I want desperately to believe in you. Please do not let me, my family, and the country I love down.