Posted by
William D. Dannenmaier on Saturday, February 26, 2011 8:55:27 AM
An Open Letter to President Obama
Dear Mr. President:
Certain foreign affairs appear to be troubling you at this time. I have suggestions regarding two of them which may help you.
First, I have been watching the Somalia situation with interest. It appears that you and your advisors are at a loss as to how to handle the situation for the good of all nations. I have a suggestion for a simple solution. Send a letter to the head of Somalia expressing hope for change. Then you should watch carefully. At the end of, say twenty-four hours, if there is no noticeable change, send a second message expressing sorrow that the leaders of Somalia do not have the strength to deal with the pirates, but that the United States will help. Then send in the navy. Sink every ship in the harbor and every Somalia ship that can be located at sea. Sink them, don’t capture them: we have neither the room nor the wish to house several thousand Somalia pirates in our prisons for thirty years. (Currently the 18 pirates who killed four Americans are being transported to the United States for civilian trials.) Having done this, have the navy air force practice their bombing. Level the harbor and the city that surrounds it. Then send a third message to the chief of Somalia. Express your pleasure that you have been able to assist him in ridding his nation of pirates. Enclose a bill for the services of the navy. Don’t try to make a profit, just the costs: a billion dollars or whatever. If you don’t wish to charge Somalia, at least quit sending them millions in foreign aid.
My second suggestion concerns Afghanistan. I have a grandson on his way there with the Marines, but I am not only concerned about him, but also about all other young people there. I have some experience with this, having served as a scout with the 15th Infantry Regiment in the mountains of Korea. Combat is not fun, it is vicious. It is unpleasant to see friends and fellows die, but at least we had a purpose. We were to drive the North Koreans and the Chinese out of South Korea and we did. And we kept them out. That is not possible in Afghanistan. The tribes there have hated and fought one another for at least two thousand years. They will not change, just as the Sioux and the Chippewa still hate each other – it would be a mistake for a Sioux to go on a Chippewa reservation and vice-versa. Similarly, the Blackfoot and the Crow continue their hate. These feelings continue despite a hundred years of enforced peace between these different tribes. With your background you should be aware of such problems. Having lived and attended school in Hawaii you must know that it is a mistake for a Hawaiian of some tribes to walk down a street inhabited by members of certain other tribes, at least this is what a friend, a native born Hawaiian told me.
Thus the conflict in Afghanistan is not winnable without the complete destruction of the Afghan society which would require the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children: guilty and innocent alike, as we did in Japan and Germany. But this approach is not possible politically. Those Afghan tribes are not going to have a love fest and our current approach won’t change that. By sending young men and women into such a situation, you are simply sacrificing young American lives without purpose or hope. Declare the war Bush’s fault – in a way it is, after the Taliban were defeated, his purpose for going there, he should have withdrawn all troops. He didn’t. By continuing that debacle you are simply continuing his mistake. Accept the fact that it was his mistake, and bring our young fighters home. They could serve a more useful purpose on the Mexican border, a border that Mexico doesn’t appear to recognize.
If these ideas helps you Mr. President, don’t bother to thank me, I’m just pleased to be able to assist you in finding the only solutions possible, given the current situation.
Sincerely yours, with hope for change.
William D. Dannenmaier