An Open Letter to President Bush

Dear Mr. President,

I suppose you're rather surprised to be hearing from me. After all, we're not, shall we say .... close. Alright, I don't like you and you probably - if you knew me - wouldn't like me much either. After all, I am a birkenstock wearing, granola eating, tree hugging foreign liberal whose Save the Whales sticker has blistered off the back of her van. You, on the other hand, are a son of priviledge who lacks the intellectual smarts to grasp the term morally conflicted. What is morally conflicted, you ask? That is how you should feel when you send poor inner city kids off to be killed in Iraq after you were too cowardly to dirty your flight suit with any South Asian soil.

But perhaps we're getting off on the wrong foot here. I am not here to complain, Mr. President. Well, not much anyway. I am here to help you. Really, I am. It's been a week of nothing but bad news about Iraq. First off, Rumsfeld estimates that it's going to be another 12 years before American troops can leave Iraq. 12 years! That's the average life span of a golden retriever, for crying out loud. And then Cheney tries to back peddle his way out of that mess, but with little success. Even you, Mr. President, couldn't really come up with anything better than saying that setting a timetable for leaving Iraq "would be a serious mistake" that would embolden the enemy and demoralize American military morale. Excuse my french, Mr. President, but what the fuck do you think 12 more years of deployment is going to do!

But it's going to be okay. Really, it is. I have a plan. Why should you listen to the plan of a communist lily-livered peacenik who isn't even an American? I'll tell you why - 'cause you don't have any better options right now. So just sit back and ponder this for a moment.

Here's the plan: I have in my possession a weapon of such deadly force that not even the Iraqi insurgents could survive it. We're talking about something so destructive, so fearful, that twenty four hours in its presence and you would have Osama Bin Laden waving down American tanks in the streets and begging to be taken into captivity. Al Zarqawi would fling down his arms and start spouting Al Qaeda secrets. There would be a mass exodus from the site of it's deployment, right into the arms of any waiting troops. Hell, you might even get people willing to convert to fundamentalist Christianity! How does that sound to you, Mr. President?

And what could be so fearful, so traumatic, as to cause people to run screaming from it's presence?

I'll tell you what. Or rather, who. My two year old son. Oh yes. This child can empty a shopping mall with a single well timed scream. He can tantrum for days with a ferocity that could shake anyone's faith in a higher power. He can even demolish fire resistant, anti-shatter glass with four lego blocks and a plastic set of pliers. Yes, Mr. President, he is an awesome, dangerous weapon - and one not to be used lightly. But I would be willing to part with him for a brief period of time - for the greater good, of course. You see, Mr. President, this could be a win-win situation for both of us. You could bring peace and stability to Iraq, and I could get a little shut-eye.

And Matti, well, he could learn a new language and get some interesting stamps on his passport. We could call it an "educational experience".

I will be waiting for your reply, Mr. President.

Sincerely,
Kim