9/19/2001

Dear Mr. President,

I would like to let you know that I do not wish for the United States to start or continue a war in response to the recent terrorists attacks. While it is necessary to bring the culprits to justice and we must do what is needed to protect ourselves from future attacks I believe that declaring war on terrorists will not be the best way to achieve justice and is certainly not the best way to protect ourselves from future attacks. We should treat this crime the same way we would any other criminal of this magnitude. We cannot afford to run the risk of appearing to harm civilians or to violate the rights of suspects in our efforts to find, apprehend, and convict the perpetrators. If we do so we will be viewed as bullies by many people around the world and these people will use our actions for their own propaganda purposes to incite further hatred of the US. In the long run, this will lead to more terrorist attacks on the US.

I believe that we must take a two pronged approach to defending ourselves and the rest of the world from terrorist attacks. The first approach is based on taking standard security measures to prevent attacks. That is, to not allow weapons on airplanes, to guard against the entrance of known terrorists into the country, to arrest and prosecute those know to be involved in terrorism and so forth. The second, and I believe ultimately more effective approach, is to alleviate the underlying hatred, poverty, fear, mistrust and hurt which cause people to wish to harm others. The US, as the richest, most militarily powerful nation in the world, must take a leadership role in helping all people in the world to have the opportunity to live fulfilling lives.

I believe that the US is currently viewed as a bully who has only his own capitalistic self interests at heart. While we certainly aid and have aided many people and many countries, we tend to do so when it helps our bottom line. We do not wish to sign the Tokyo accords because it might harm jobs. Have we thought about harm to the environment? We went to war to stop the invasion of Kuwait and saved oil fields as well as Kuwaitis. Why didn't we respond to wars between African and other nations? It is commonly perceived that this is because we have no economic interests in these regions. Why do we refuse to sign landmine accords? Is it because we wish to sell these products? Is it because we plan to go to war? The true reason does not matter as much as the perception. We are seen as only supporting those environmental, economic, and military agreements which help us. We will give economic aid to many poor countries, but only so long as they have governments (democratic or dictatorial) which we support. I believe that we must change our actions and policies to support all efforts at bringing peace prosperity, and democracy to all countries. We should take an active roll in bringing equal opportunities to all peoples in all nations.

A campaign to eliminate all terrorism using military force cannot hope to find and eliminate all terrorists, but it would generate many more in the process. We must lead the difficult battle to achieve peace and equality throughout the world, not the battle to prove that we can be the biggest bully.