Dear President Obama,

Do you really want to be the new “war
president”? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and
announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops
in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And
with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do — destroy
the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one
speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who
were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will
teach them what they’ve always heard is true — that all politicians
are alike. I simply can’t believe you’re about to do what they say you
are going to do. Please say it isn’t so.

It is not your job to
do what the generals tell you to do. We are a civilian-run government.
WE tell the Joint Chiefs what to do, not the other way around. That’s
the way General Washington insisted it must be. That’s what President
Truman told General MacArthur when MacArthur wanted to invade China.
“You’re fired!,” said Truman, and that was that. And you should have
fired Gen. McChrystal when he went to the press to preempt you, telling
the press what YOU had to do. Let me be blunt: We love our kids in the
armed services, but we f*#&in’ hate these generals, from
Westmoreland in Vietnam to, yes, even Colin Powell for lying to the UN
with his made-up drawings of WMD (he has since sought redemption).

So
now you feel backed into a corner. 30 years ago this past Thursday
(Thanksgiving) the Soviet generals had a cool idea — “Let’s invade
Afghanistan!” Well, that turned out to be the final nail in the USSR
coffin.

There’s a reason they don’t call Afghanistan the
“Garden State” (though they probably should, seeing how the corrupt
President Karzai, whom we back, has his brother in the heroin trade
raising poppies). Afghanistan’s nickname is the “Graveyard of Empires.”
If you don’t believe it, give the British a call. I’d have you call
Genghis Khan but I lost his number. I do have Gorbachev’s number
though. It’s + 41 22 789 1662. I’m sure he could give you an earful about the historic blunder you’re about to commit.

With
our economic collapse still in full swing and our precious young men
and women being sacrificed on the altar of arrogance and greed, the
breakdown of this great civilization we call America will head, full
throttle, into oblivion if you become the “war president.” Empires
never think the end is near, until the end is here. Empires think that
more evil will force the heathens to toe the line — and yet it never
works. The heathens usually tear them to shreds.

Choose
carefully, President Obama. You of all people know that it doesn’t have
to be this way. You still have a few hours to listen to your heart, and
your own clear thinking. You know that nothing good can come from
sending more troops halfway around the world to a place neither you nor
they understand, to achieve an objective that neither you nor they
understand, in a country that does not want us there. You can feel it
in your bones.

I know you know that there are LESS than a
hundred al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan! A hundred thousand troops trying
to crush a hundred guys living in caves? Are you serious? Have you
drunk Bush’s Kool-Aid? I refuse to believe it.

Your potential
decision to expand the war (while saying that you’re doing it so you
can “end the war”) will do more to set your legacy in stone than any of
the great things you’ve said and done in your first year. One more
throwing a bone from you to the Republicans and the coalition of the
hopeful and the hopeless may be gone — and this nation will be back in
the hands of the haters quicker than you can shout “tea bag!”

Choose
carefully, Mr. President. Your corporate backers are going to abandon
you as soon as it is clear you are a one-term president and that the
nation will be safely back in the hands of the usual idiots who do
their bidding. That could be Wednesday morning.

We the people
still love you. We the people still have a sliver of hope. But we the
people can’t take it anymore. We can’t take your caving in, over and
over, when we elected you by a big, wide margin of millions to get in
there and get the job done. What part of “landslide victory” don’t you
understand?