User:Woozle/2007-10-15 open letter to GWB

''I'm thinking I should post this on (maybe) DKos, and see if anyone has any suggestions for better questions to ask. It is currently incomplete, and I am just saving it to avoid losing it.''


 * To: George W. Bush (President, United States of America)
 * From: Nick Staddon (sysop and main contributor, issuepedia.org; member of civilization)

I was at first very hesitant to approach you with my concerns. Just now I read an article by Mr. Christopher Hitchens about the importance of standing up to defend your country regardless of the risks or costs, and I thought to myself "if young men and women can go off willingly to die in Iraq in the name of freedom, surely I shouldn't be sitting on my posterior worrying about whether I should send a letter in that same cause". So here is my letter.

I have heard a number of things about your administration which, I have to say quite frankly, bother me a great deal. Some of them are almost certainly true, while others may not be (and I would very much like to believe that they are not). Everything I have heard from you on this subject has been rather vague, and members of the press who have been allowed to ask you questions generally seem to have failed to ask the questions I would have asked.

So I thought I should go directly to you (or at least to your office), where I can get the official answers to these questions.

'''1. Is it true that your administration has begun a "watch list" of those who have made comments critical of your administration? What do you plan to do with this list?'''

This is the question which started me thinking about writing you. If there is such a list, I should definitely be on it, as I have been most harshly critical of you, your administration, your execution of the Iraq war, the war on terror declared by you, and a number of other issues you support, and I intend to go on doing so for as long as I have criticisms to make. I have made these criticisms publicly, on a web site, and have done my meager best to draw attention to that web site and invite others to add their own contributions (either agreeing or disagreeing with mine). I consider it my patriotic duty, as I am sure you do also, to exercise the freedom in which our country was founded.

I therefore respectfully suggest that if there is such a list, you should add my name to it.

I also suggest that such a list is quite contrary to the principles of freedom and the Constitution which you have sworn to uphold. I therefore have difficulty believing that there is such a list, and I feel sure that if word of such a list reached your ears, you would do everything in your power to stop it at once.

2. Why has your administration been blocking all efforts to investigate the astonishing waste of taxpayer money in Iraq?

As many have observed, both inside your administration and outside, we have a choice between winning and losing in Iraq. You seem to be (at best) neglecting all the details that would give us a chance of winning, and paying attention only to details that affect your political standing in the moment.