Open letter to US citizens: American people, please save us from yourselves!

Dear America,

Now that John Kerry has demonstrated himself to the American people as rational and statesmanlike leader, especially compared to the histrionic, contorted and ugly evasions evinced by President Bush during the three debates that were his to loose, hopefully we have embarked on a journey that will culminate in a change of government in the USA.

Just as the rest of the world sits amazed at the malaise that has seized America since Bush took office and which has manifested itself in more extreme forms since he entered into an ill defined and unwinnable war against terror, so too are many Americans evidently staggered by the enormity of the mendacious lies that they have been sold by a deceitful leadership, further distorted by an unquestioningly compliant media.

Seymour Hersh, the veteran journalist responsible for exposing the Pentagon Papers, the Mai Lai massacre and many other low points of recent American intervention and mismanagement in the world, is himself as shocked as any man can be. Hersh, who recently blew open the details of the Abu Ghraib story, has gone on to detail how the Republic of the United States of America has been taken to the cleaners by a small band of neo-conservative extremists with no sense of shame, no sense of remorse nor any degree of guilt at their traitorous self indulgence.

This rotten clan has created a private fiefdom for their friends to feast at an Iraqi pork barrel of unprecedented taxpayer largesse. The war that was supposedly meant to free Iraqis has instead benefited insider organisations like the Carlyle Group with its close associations with both the extended Bush Family and more specifically, its incumbent Presidents’ inner circle. It has also inordinately benefited Halliburton, the company vice president Dick Cheney headed up before taking his present post, not to mention a slew of others associated with well-connected conservative Washington Beltway insiders. Tax breaks abound for this coterie while the average American citizen sinks ever deeper into a morass of national debt that threatens to destabilise the entire international financial system.

This cabal has eroded twenty years of improved environmental governance, cocked a snook at the rest of the world and United Nations - which it cynically and ironically attempts to court in a cackhanded sort of way - and has gone on a rampage, striking out in every which direction, not only forgetting why - or who - it first set out to get, but more importantly that it has created a far more unstable world than it inherited, difficult as that is to comprehend.

These extremists, this junta who failed to achieve even a democratic majority, has eroded the US constitution more seriously in the past 4 years than any other government in the previous 229 years of the existence of the USA, including during the time of the American Civil War, in what was arguably Americas darkest hour. The Patriot Act, rushed through congress in the middle of the night shortly after the panic of 9/11 and instituted by the fundamentalist Attorney General John Ashcroft, has swept away rights that have long been considered basic and inviolate. Despite creating Big Brother, the Patriot Act has not secured one single indictment. The real indictment rests upon Ashcroft and his political masters.

The world’s people have a special place in their hearts for America, its ideals and its people. Sadly the land of the free and the brave has been subjected to what amounts to a coup by unscrupulous and unconstrained extremists of the most dangerous sort. If Americans give these guys a look in at four more years, it will mean the end of the world, as we know it.

The global majority wishes to reach out to our friends in America, of whom we know we have many, and call for calm and strength. The time ahead is of far more importance for the world than 9/11 or the war on terror; or even, as is whispered in the corridors of the White House between prayer sessions, "the rapture, the rapture", otherwise known as Armageddon.

We know that these particular lunatics in charge of the asylum would be only too happy to ’do His word’ (a sexist concept if ever there was!) and engage this Armageddonite rapture. These fruitcakes unquestionably consider themselves amongst those selected to ascend straight to heaven when this rapture descends on the rest of us mere mortals, be it nuclear, chemical or biological or some hexed up combination. The certainty is that the rapture will be of their very making, in one way or another, if we end up with another four years of this corrupt plutocracy. When these dudes accuse others of possessing WMDs, there is some serious projection going on!

In the face of this clannish dementia it is up to rational humans around the world to embrace the interim compromise of a President Kerry and to help steer this sadly stumbling superpower back to its path of goodness so that it can again stand tall again amongst all nations. No nation becomes great simply by projecting power. Power comes with responsibility.

The world wishes to co-operatively rehabilitate this once great nation that has lost its way after being taken on a magical mystery tour of psychedelic proportions by misguided and irrational extremists of the most dangerous sort; its very own leadership.

These are - after all - the very men who created both Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden; their actions now spawn armies of enemies far more threatening than these earlier, evil incarnations. They have spawned legion enemies, literally.

There is a distinctly psychopathic tendency in how Rove, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and Bush individually, jointly and severally refuse to take any responsibility for the mess they have made and are making; instead they revel in a perverse war-against-everything, from terror to the environment, from their political foes to anyone who questions them. Please, we must stop them not just for the sake of America but for all of us.

Americans, we call you to your senses and extend a hand of friendship in extracting you from the quagmire not only of Iraq, but also from the nightmare of geopolitical reality you have allowed us all to be sucked into.

Together we really can create a better world for all; we can do it with difficulty without America but it would not be the same. Come; stand again on the side of what is good and right, with the global democratic majority. Let’s get on with building this world together.

I can say with complete confidence that the rest of the world would welcome President Kerry as a worthy representative of America. I cannot say the same for Bush.

American people, please try to save us from yourselves!
God save America and God save us all!

Completely and utterly sincerely,

Glenn Ashton
_A free country, outside the USA. Planet Earth.

Glenn Ashton is a freelance South African writer and researcher. He spent over a year and a half visiting the USA during the 80’s and 90’s and maintains close ties with friends who visit and live there. He still likes Americans even if its no longer fashionable.

http://briarholler.blogspot.com/