Dear Terrorists,

Although I do not support your attacks on the United States or on any innocent people, I think it is important that we open up a dialogue in order to calm the current situation and move closer to the ends we both desire. To my own personal philosophy, violence is the end result of pain, hatred, and torment, and so I feel empathy for the mental state you have been forced by fate to endure and which has, along with other factors, brought the world to its current state.

As you undoubtedly know, we are on the verge of another election in the United States, and I assume that another four years of President Bush is not what you or anybody really wants. Unfortunately, your actions have done more for the support of Bush than virtually anything else that I can conceive of. In a way, George W. Bush relies on your existence so that he can maintain a culture of fear and implore that the US people vote based on this fear rather than calm, rational thought. George W. Bush uses the existence of terrorism to support his own ends, and without terrorism his popularity would plummet drastically.

I understand that you would hate George W. Bush, I hate him too but for what I am sure are different reasons than your own. With provisions like the Patriot Act, and his continuing perpetuation of fear in America, Bush is doing everything he can to destroy what brave American soldiers have fought and died to protect for hundreds of years. To be perfectly honest, I feel terrible shame that the American public would so dishonor the memory of its veterans by allowing for the existence of new “anti-terror“ laws that take away our constitutional freedoms. It is a disgrace that the very liberty so many brave, young men died to protect would be so quickly and conveniently sacrificed in the face of an unfounded, hysterical fear.

In the moments after Sept. 11th, America needed a strong, comforting voice. A real leader who would regroup the people and keep them from hurting themselves in the panic that ensued after such a horrific event. Bush, however, took advantage of the national suffering like an entrepreneur, and quickly laid the groundwork for his friends in the military and oil industries to make a fortune. He has continuously exploited the weak, and defended his platform with ridiculous, sanctimonious demagoguery that the American public has shown a distressing inability to disregard.

I know that you terrorists view the United States as an arrogant, godless country that flaunts its wealth at the rest of the world. Perhaps that is why you hate us so much. Or perhaps it is because many of you were left without homes after we told you to rise up against Saddam Hussein and then abandoned you during the first Bush administration. Or perhaps you were simply trained by the United States like Osama Bin Laden to be a terrorist and you don’t know how else to live.

However, there are some things about the United States that would probably surprise you to learn. Like the fact that most of the decisions that have been made by the US that you have exhibited such a violent reaction towards, are not the will of the majority of the people. Although America is the wealthiest country in the world, the vast majority of the wealth is distributed among a very, very small ruling class.

The vast majority of the citizens of the US are good, hard-working people who do the best they can to care and provide for their fellow man. They are trapped in a system that terrifies them with lies, and exploits their trust and essential goodness. Most Americans are at the mercy of major corporations that reap the largest portion of the labors of the common citizen. Did you know that the US, the richest country in the world, does not care enough about its citizens to have a national health care system? Did you know that the government provides no education to its citizens beyond the age of 18, and the education that it does provide until the 18th year is filled with propaganda and well beneath the standards of the other countries of the world? You see, the US government wants its citizens to be ignorant so that they will be more susceptible to the lies of weak, corporate stooges who rise to the office of president.

I’m sorry to have to break this to you, but the people that you terrorists hate were not in the World Trade Center on September 11th. The people in those buildings were working-class people, and later, when the attacks came, firemen and policemen. The people in those buildings were the best of America, and they embody the humanity and courage that is admired not just in the United States, but across the borders of nations, culture, and race. They represented the best of the human spirit, and their deaths were a horrible tragedy that has shaken the world with aftershocks of moral and spiritual injustice.

I do not condone violence. It is an act of weakness that has been proven historically to only accelerate evil rather than eliminate it. From the September 11th attacks to the ill-conceived war on Iraq, I fear America and the human race has been caught in a downward spiral that, if continued to gain momentum, will only culminate in utter disaster for the world. And the momentum for this horrible tempest is coming from the specter of terrorism. You will never achieve your ends by attacking the good citizens that make up the backbone of civilization.

Please do not attack the American innocent. The corporations and people like President George W. Bush will only use the ensuing fear to continue to perpetuate the evil they represent. It’s the dictatorial wealthy minority that embody what you hate about America. The Haliburtons and other oil companies as well as the arms manufacturers and any other group that profited from the war on Iraq. These are the ones behind the terror, both the terror that you have perpetuated and the terror that the US has inflicted on the rest of the world. Please don’t kill our firemen and our policemen, we need our heroes to save us from the evil that plagues so much of America, killing the good people won’t help your cause.

Terrorists, I implore you to take a look at what has happened since Sept. 11th. Before that fateful attack, George W. Bush was steadily losing approval. It appeared a certainty that he would wash out of office after only one term. But since the attack, the American public has lost its reason, and Bush continues to be poplar despite his obvious lack of mental capacity, and his repeated cowardice and incompetence in the face of danger. You need look no further than his 7 minute delayed response to the Sept. 11th attacks to see that he lacks the basic tenets of leadership necessary to helm the American Nation. I shudder to think what might have happened had the attack on America been a first strike from a super power rather than just an independent incident. Sept. 11th showed that we are a nation with its pants down, and our pants will continue to be down as long as George W. Bush is in office.

I hope that all the current terrorists in the world and the terrorists of the future can take a look at these past few years and see the futility of their actions. The descent of America into a bully nation that engages preemptive attacks on sovereign nations could not have been the purpose the Sept. 11th attacks were designed to provoke. The only people that Sept. 11th assisted were the rich minority that you terrorists were trying to unseat. You played right into their hands and only increased the power of the oppressors who have taken advantage of the American people and the rest of the world.

My real question is: why? Why would you perform an act that worked so completely in conflict with the ends you claim to be striving for? Why did you go after innocent people? Why didn’t you go after the major corporations? I would assume it would be much easier to plan an assault on corporate oppressors and American billionaires than it would be to hijack an airplane. I assume it would be easier to go after corrupt elected officials in states like Florida than it would be to destroy the World Trade center. As the events played out, I can only come to two conclusions: either you terrorists are so stupid that you couldn’t foresee how Bush would profit from your actions, or having Bush profit by your actions is exactly what you were working for.

Who can tell what the true motivations are for anyone? Yet, with all the uncertainty in the world, there are a few things that are clear. Terrorism is not good for the world, and neither is George W. Bush. They have been irrevocably linked for the last four years, and it is becoming increasingly clear that if you eliminate one you eliminate the other. With all my heart I pray that the American public takes heed of this situation and elect Kerry as our president in November.

And I also hope that you terrorists of the world see how similar you are to people like George W. Bush, and how your perpetuation of hatred and murder only creates a situation in which they are granted greater, and ever more terrifying power.

The End