A Letter to a President

Dear President Obama,

"Make Love, Not War"

Peace, a state of mutual harmony between people or groups. To be at peace is to love and not hate. To be in peace is to give and not take away. As I write this letter to you, I am much obliged to think about all those countless people that die everyday. Every second, someone, somewhere, dies. Death; the act of dying. To die is to be deprived of life. Some die of illnesses while others out of anger. Needless to say, life is priceless.

To be in war against someone else is to be in a conflict carried on by force of arms and weapons. A war does not tell you who the most powerful is, nor does it tell you who is right and who is wrong. A war simply tells you who is left. As you increase the number of American Soldiers serving in Iraq, I am much obliged to think about all those American soldiers as well as all the Iraqi men and women; boys and girls who have perished in their homeland. Life is a gift that should not be taken away and with that in mind, I deny the fact that more soldiers should be sent to Iraq.

Every one wishes to live a calm life. This however, is hardly the case. A day came in America when a cumbersome cloud of despair and sorrow covered the entire country. A cloud so imposing, that its days are still remembered today. A day when lives were lost, families destroyed, children left orphans and wives left widowed. A day came when even the President, who at that time was in an elementary class, couldn't express his emotions fearful for the students to worry and a nation to disappoint. A single "nine-eleven" shook the whole country upside down. These are the kind of days that Iraqi men and women see tirelessly when they learn that a bomb has exploded in their neighborhood. I myself have been to Iraq and have seen fear with my own eyes; I have seen fear in their eyes. They are scared to go out to the grocery not knowing if they will return. They are fearful of sending their children into danger when they drop them off at school. These people feel unassured by the same men who were sent there to protect them.

As you are well aware of, Mr. Obama, the war in Iraq has had its economic toll on America. More then 600 billion dollars have been put into the war in Iraq. The common man is much obliged to ask himself where this money comes from. To their surprise, they learn that the war is paid by their own money; the money they give to the government in the form of taxes. It is an undeniable fact that the war is killing the economy. 600 billion dollars could have been used another way. 600 billion dollars to improve the health service; 600 billion dollars to improve education services; 600 billion dollars to give birth to a healthier and cleaner planet; 600 billion dollars is a lot of money. Instead, all this money is being used in an attempt to solve a conflict that shows its side effects on the common man. Seeing how you encourage people to see every person as being equal, would it be fair for the common man to pay the government to give their own mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters a hard time to live a calm and happy life, be it in another country?

The war itself started in the previous presidency so to extract natural gas from a country you have no right on. Imposing force since you had some, and taking what you needed. The initial goal, as you know, was to simply extract petroleum from the Iraqi soil. Couldn't 600 billion dollars easily be used to look for a more efficient way which would, in terms, out beat petroleum in whole? The money could have been used in finding a source of energy well above petrol which would not only raise the status of America in the eyes of the Scientific Community but would also have prevented a war of few hopes.

As an elect President of the United States, great responsibilities have been given to you. In these times of economic crisis, the war, I believe, should be put aside and forces should be joined to truly fight a wide-spread crisis affecting the smallest corners of the earth. Our world is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. Plato once said: "Only the dead have seen the end of war". Perhaps it is time to prove him wrong!

As I stretch this letter to its final words, I loose my patience in the hope to see the world reflect peace and serenity. I cannot forget the four words I used as a rudiment to my plea to stopping the war in Iraq.
"Make Love, Not War"

With all due respect,

A Concerned Citizen.