President George W. Bush, Jr.
THE WHITE HOUSE
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington. D.C. 20500
June 18, 2003
Re: Revisionist Historians
Dear Mr. President:
Reuters reported on 16 June that you blasted "revisionist historians" for criticizing your pre-emptive war on Iraq. I am inspired by your blast to follow in your footsteps because I think the people of this Great Nation of Ours have been deceived by numerous revisions of the truth emanating from your administration. We may disagree on just what the truth is; still, if you are a man of your word, I know you will encourage me to honestly speak my mind even though you might be personally affronted by it. Hence what follows, beginning with your statements:
"Now there are some who would like to rewrite history; revisionist historians is what I like to call them..... Saddam Hussein was a threat to America and the free world in '91, in '98, in 2003. He continually ignored the demands of the free world, so the United States and friends and allies acted.... This is for certain, Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to the United States and our friends and allies.... This government will use whatever technologies and skill is necessary to secure America by hunting down those who would harm us one person at a time."
The Reuters report pointed out that you did not mention your lack of positive proof of any such threat, and further reported that Rand Beers, your former National Security Council counterterrorism aide, said that your "ill-conceived and poorly executed strategy" on Iraq had undermined domestic security, and that he "continued to be puzzled by it," asking, "Why was it such a policy priority?"
If I were a historian, I would begin with the end in mind, and say that you were groomed by your father to resume the war on Iraq with a vengeance, and that you did just that, shortly after you assumed office, accompanied by several of your father's ministers.
Although you appeared to have no platform at all when your father put you forward as the right-wing authoritarian candidate for the presidency, many of us who were familiar with your family history were not deceived by the absence of planks. There was only one, monolithic plank: make war on Iraq. During the campaign and after your inauguration, you contradicted by action every conservative principle you had previously professed, but one: make war on Iraq. Shortly after you took office, you proceeded to play your Overture to the War on Iraq, but it aroused such dissonance that you had to give it a rest until the green light was given on 9/11 - within minutes thereafter, and without any evidence of Iraq's involvement whatsoever, the plans to make war on Iraq were reportedly on the table, without a particle of dust or cobweb on them.
I would say that history repeats itself when people in power do not learn by it, and that is why the United States finds itself not only at war in Iraq but also with the worst unemployment predicament since your father's presidency. Your administration is in fact referred to as dynastic - another king is supposedly being groomed at this very moment. Those of us who believe in the merits of democracy have good reason to fear dynasties. 'Like father like son', is all very well when the despot is benevolent; when he is not, all too often the finger of the son is bigger than his father's thigh, hence the tyranny is amplified in its descent; grandiose paranoia is not checked, and it runs rampant on a killing spree, thinking its mightiness proves its righteousness.
And now you have said, "This government will use whatever technologies and skill is necessary to secure America by hunting down those who would harm us one person at a time." By "person" you apparently include sovereign nations such as Iraq, whom, as a state, you have executed without a trial on a presumption of guilt, using the pretext that Iraq, like many other nations in the world, possessed weapons of mass destruction. Your prosecution of one "rogue state" appears to proceed according to an ala carte hunting campaign that puzzled your counterterrorism aide, Rand Beers; however, he should not be perplexed that Iraq was attacked, even as it categorically denied possession of weapons of mass destruction, while North Korea, for instance, was waving nuclear weapons in your face: you were groomed by your father to resume the war on Iraq with a vengeance, and you did just that.
To reiterate that it might sink in, I would say again and again that you were groomed to continue the war on Iraq in order to correct the sins of your father in respect to the untimely deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were betrayed by his administration. No new 'evidence' was required: any pretext would do. We may even have a case here of executing a known criminal for the only crime he did not commit, and killing many thousands of people to boot, including our own people. I do believe this is a case of exacting vigilante justice and vengeance, and doing so contrary to the will of the international community; a community which you, Mr. President, approached arrogantly, saying that you would have your way or else, then dismissed it arrogantly when you did not get your way - fortunately, we may not approach our domestic courts in that fashion, or crime would be the rule.
As for the evidence of weapons of mass destruction, as secondary as it is to the moral issue, we have seen no more credible evidence of it than the preposterous arguments and flimsy or ambiguous circumstantial evidence comparing you and the World Trade Center to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor, alleging that you, or members of your administration, knew that the 9/11 attacks were imminent, yet stood by for the provocation. Such insults would amount to seditious libel punishable by death under the old dynasties, but are protected speech today, because, only when people speak freely can the truth come out to set them free - for its part, I understand your government wants to withhold evidence for reasons of national security again, or, because it has no evidence. Those charges are more than reprehensible, of course, and I only mention them here, Mr. President, to illustrate my point that your accusations, considering the evidence alone, were no more credible than the charges against you. Of course there is, as you know, 'evidence' to support the loathsome conspiracy theory: the Israeli spies who were caught celebrating 9/11 as the towers fell, and were whisked out of the country; the spy who came out of the cold in Canada, and was tossed in jail there, reportedly with 'ambiguous' information on the impending attack, which he said he received from Russian intelligence agents.
No, sir, I am not a historian, and if I were, I do not believe you would find any just cause to "blast" me as a "revisionist." I know you have the courage of your convictions, that you have divided the world into two: the people for you are 'Good'; the ones opposed are 'Evil.' I also have the courage of my convictions, and I believe my interpretation of recent history does not constitute a 'revision' of the truth, but is rather its obvious revelation. If I wrote a history, I would say that the United States Constitution as it stands would be fatally defective were it not for the amendment clause. First of all, it allows for the election of a president who has an almost royal power to arbitrarily provoke and to wage wars. The Constitution should be amended to provide that war may not be waged, except in case of a defensive war following a direct attack on United States territory, but by referendum. As you know, with a referendum you would not have had the continuation of your dynasty's war on Iraq.
Please do not hesitate to give me a call if you feel that I have revised history, or if you believe I may be of some further service to this Great Nation of Ours.
Sincerely,
David Arthur Walters
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