Dear American Soldier in Iraq
Dear American Soldier in Iraq:
There are a few things you should know about how tens of millions of us back home feel about you and the fight you are waging. These things need to be said...
What has happened is that many Americans, for all sorts of reasons--some out of simple fatigue, some because they do not believe that war solves anything, some out of deep loathing for the present administration--do not believe that what you are doing is worth doing. You know that what you are doing is worth continuing...
You know that you are fighting the most vicious and primitive ideology in the world today. It is the belief that one's God wants his followers to maim, torture and murder in order to spread a system of laws that sends societies back to a moral and intellectual state that is pre-civilization. You know that the war you wage against these people and their totalitarian ideology is also necessary because a society unwilling to fight for its values does not have values worth sustaining...
We see you as the best and brightest of our society. Even The New York Times, one of the mainstream media publications that do not understand the epic battle you are waging, acknowledged in an article by one of its embedded correspondents that few Americans of your age can come close to you in maturity, wisdom or leadership abilities. It is unfortunate that the battle for moral clarity and moral courage in America is as divisive as the battle for freedom is in Iraq. But that is the nature of the world we live in. And it has ever been so...
You probably knew all this. But you need to hear it anyway.
That, and thank you. Thank you very much.