WAR

Dear President Obama,

This week, in the op-ed section of the Los Angeles times, George McGovern wrote an editorial about our war in Iraq and the one that is still continuing in Afghanistan and possibly spreading into Pakistan. He wants us to pull out of that area completely and immediately. I agree.

As it happens I grew up in the Middle East and know the nature of the tribal and religious sects in that area. I have not been to Afghanistan but my father was all over that area as a New York Times correspondent in the sixties. I was there for three years with my family and returned to Beirut for college from 1970 to 1975. I know first hand how the different religious and
sectarian factions think and compete for power. We are not going to change any of that. It is a fight as old as Jerusalem.

I agree with Senator McGovern that we should not be fighting there. It is nothing we can win. We have spent six years teaching the Iraqi people how to manage their country. It is time to leave. The costly lesson must end now. “Khrallas!” as they say there. The word is a mixture of “finish” and “stop.”

As for Afghanistan, it will indeed be your Vietnam, as Senator Kerry communicated yesterday, along with a soldier home from duty in there in Afghanistan. He said that combat in that stark landscape is like “fighting ghosts” because they never see their enemy.

As Mr. McGovern says, “Why have you adopted most of Bush’s formula for dragging out the war?” The fixation Americans have on Al Quaida is psychotic and miopic. There are many anti-American groups there and elsewhere. There will always be. If thousands of American troops go into those Afghan mountains it will be slaughter for many on both sides. You will just encourage more insurgents to join the militants in the caves. Why are you insisting on it?


Pull out completely. You and your staff should work diplomatically to receive accurate intel from the countries that harbor (against their will, by the way) terrorists and make sure the anti-American groups are well contained and observed closely. Just use the considerable resources in the area already. We have to surround any place they are operating from,
contain them, maintain a close watch on them and their movements. Please don’t use our men to go in those treacherous mountains.

President Obama, I’m wondering if you have been brainwashed into thinking we need to continue a war there in Iraq and Afghanistan. Are the commanders of the Armed Forces controlling you as they did President Bush? If so, I am extremely disappointed. You are still allowing Americans to die every day in Iraq (and probably other places) and killing civilians
by the dozens. I am shocked that you are allowing this to continue.

Please try to do the right thing. Save all those lives that will end there in the next few years. Bring our troops home, please.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth Brady Woods