A Response To A Response To An Open Letter

The Open Letter can be found here: http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikes-letter/open-letter-president-obama-michael-moore

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The Response (by a Mr. Mark Lurtsema) and the Response to the Response appear in the following passages:

Reading over your comments in response to Michael Moore’s letter, I cannot help but respond to your response. My replies follow directly from your comments. I choose your response for my response because you trot out so many of the familiar arguments that up to now seem to go unanswered. “Let us at least not repeat lies.”

>>>I know first hand how terrible warfare and killing is.

I also know. And knowing this, I say that again we see the safe, protected and old all too willing to send the young and the confused off into danger to be hurt and killed for what amounts to nothing. Are we to think having Americans in Afghanistan for a few years (or even a few decades) is going to fundamentally change anything in Afghanistan? Those who believe this simply do not understand anything about the history of the region. The cynical might suggest that certain multinational pipeline dreams are the ultimate driver for the current Afghan adventure, and NOT the ever-virtual pursuit of the ghostly Osama. If that is the reason, even more so should we not be sending our young to die for the greed of old men.

>>>I also know that, at least for the foreseeable future, the warfare and killing will continue.

This is no reason to gratuitously foster, enhance and promote it. Our job, if there be any job we still have in the world beyond that of getting our own house in order, FIRST (seeing to “the beam in our own eye”), is to do everything we can to undo war and the effects of war, instead of promoting it in places where otherwise its prevalence might be far less damaging. Please, let us not forget who our “allies” and collaborators are in this Afghan adventure, and why they are so interested in being our “friends.”

>>>I know that we will continue to send our young and our courageous off to battle in places like Afghanistan.

As one who was once sent, and who worked alongside many others sent, though the sentimental phrase “young and courageous” sounds sweet (“Dulce et decorum est…”), in my experience it has been the young and the poor and the confused and the pissed off who have been sent on these foreign adventures.

>>>I don’t like it and it is difficult to accept.

If you don’t like it, why do you so readily endorse it with the familiar and increasingly strained homilies?

>>> On the other hand, we live in a violent world, and we have a committed enemy.  Right now they appear to be in the mountains and caves of Afghanistan …they may own Kandihar.  Better that they be neutralized there, than here.

This is one of the more empty-headed utterances we hear from the pro-war party, that if we don’t “do it over there, we’ll have to do it over here.” First, this is a complete misunderstanding of the causes and situation that created the events of 11 September. Second, it is a complete misunderstanding of Afghanistan and the conditions in Afghanistan (and our role there). Third, does anyone saying this really believe that if we “fail” in Afghanistan, the next stop for the Taliban is the US of A? Oh, come on! Fourth, the Taliban are strong where they are because in large part they have the active cooperation of the population in these localities–not exclusively, of course, but enough support to allow them the scope they have obtained. Try as it might, the US-led effort is not winning the “hearts and minds” of the Afghan people. Even many of our warlord “friends” and allies prove to despise us. Fifth, and most importantly, our efforts there (and in Iraq) are clearly making the enemy stronger, and not weaker. That is the paradox inherent in this sort of foreign adventuring.

>>>Although I am not a pacifist and never have been,…

WHY am I not surprised to hear you say this?

>>> …I understand and respect that thread that runs through civilization.  It is important that some of us seek peace and have the courage to face violence with peace. I also know that some people hide behind pacifism because they are afraid to stand up to violence.

Would you be suggesting that the most prominent voices for peace presently being heard, and who have been heard in the recent past are examples of those “afraid to stand up to violence”? I’d deeply question that. Further, right now, and for a long time, it has been much easier to publicly and privately stand up for retribution, angry retaliation and violent intervention than it has been for peace, for the law of compassion and for forbearance. Surely you can discern that when one path is an easy path, and another path is the more difficult path, that very often to walk the more difficult path is the more courageous walk. I, myself, when reading about or hearing about injustice feel an immediate tug to forcefully intervene. Even as I believe, still, that there are times when just that sort of intervention is needed, I find myself learning to stop, wait, think and breathe, trying to find a way forward that doesn’t return us again and again to the cycle of death-dealing, resentment and revenge. For a long time now, the last tool in our toolbox of responses for which we ought to reach–violence and war–has tended to be the first tool we want to put into our hands. Get this: We want to put that tool into our hands. The question we need to be asking ourselves, is “why?” What knowledge, what understanding, what anguish of awareness are we trying to hide from ourselves?

Further, what in opposing a particularly stupid and pointless war makes doing so the precise equivalent of pacifism? Many who would not necessarily call themselves pacifists oppose the Iraq and Afghan wars.

>>> In any case, at least here in America, that is a choice that you have.  But, it is only a choice because there are rough people willing to do violence on your behalf.

This is another of the pro-war party’s favorite tropes. It is an utterance (and viewpoint for those who honestly hold it) that understands neither violence nor peace. People who stand up for peace do not do so because someone else is making it possible for them to stand up for peace. Also, with very few exceptions, people who choose violence aren’t choosing violence because there is no other option. Example after example to the contrary–of people standing up for peace even at terrible personal cost–deny that old lie. The best that might be said is that sometimes, those willing to justly wield the force of arms have sometimes managed to protect those for whom the courageous choice not to hurt or to kill (and to actively promote peace) is the only choice they can bring themselves to make. (Only sometimes. Usually not. “In whose hand is the gun usually held?” I ask you.) Might I point you in the direction of Velcro Ripper’s recent film Fierce Light for you to see some examples of the courageously peaceful? I daresay people like those shown would choose peace no matter what the cost.

Speaking strictly for myself, I am the “rough person” willing to protect my own deep conviction that our own way forward out of the present mess we’ve created for ourselves as a nation, as a people and as a species is through the path of peace… and I say this as a not particularly peaceful man, battling lifelong a tendency toward wrath and outrage. At least, I have less illusion than I might about the place in the shadow from which my rage wants to spring. I neither need nor want some man with a gun, (or for that matter, some government with lots of guns arrogating to himself (itself) the right and responsibility to do what is rightly for me to do–protecting my peaceful path. What rot.

>>> Our brave young men and women are, in some cases, all that stand between you and me and the wolves.

I don’t buy for a moment that the troops we’ve sent to the OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD CLOSE TO WHERE THE OIL COMES FROM are there keeping “dangerous wolves” at bay. I remain profoundly unconvinced that the wars our nation is fighting are accomplishing anything like that. These are wars for special interests. Perhaps you (or others) believe in the goals of these special interests. It would be nice, in that instance, for an honest case to be made for remaining at war, instead of wrapping yourselves in the flag, and suggesting that somehow our national or cultural integrity as a people is under threat. The best that can be said is that a recent belief by Americans in their right to drive around cheaply is under threat. (Even that is doubtful.)

>>> Perhaps, Obama is sending troops to Afghanistan, not to serve corporate interests but to protect you and me from the wolves. Perhaps…

Those who are interested in wolves, and the defense of the people against wolves might do well to look much closer to home to find the sorts of wolves that are the true threat. I think even a cursory look around right here at home might find some, and in some fairly prominent places, too.

I would say: Thank you for turning this in. Think again. Think harder. D-.

Response to: Mark Lurtsema <mark.lurtsema@ctg.com>
Subject: An Open Letter to President Obama
Date: Tuesday, December 1, 2009

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