A Letter to a Child Not Yet Born - to be delivered in the year 2057, to an American soldier ...

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/8155

A Letter to a Child Not Yet Born - to be delivered in the year 2057, to an American soldier stationed somewhere in Iraq

by Jaime O'Neill | Jun 16 2007


— first published in the Chico Beat

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush would like to see a lengthy U.S. troop presence in Iraq like the one in South Korea to provide stability... the White House said on Wednesday. The United States has had thousands of U.S. troops in South Korea to guard against a North Korean invasion for 50 years. -- June, 2007

Dear Pfc. ___________.

Perhaps you are 18, maybe 19, born in 2038, or 2039, a child not yet born to a child not yet born. If the teaching of history is as bad in your time as it was in ours, you may not have heard of the man who is responsible for your presence in Iraq, so I will begin this letter-sent through space and across time-by telling you that you are where you are because an American president named George W. Bush told the American people that Iraq had stockpiled weapons that were an immediate threat to the security of the American homeland. This happened before you were born, of course, and before your parents were born, too, so it will perhaps surprise you to know that decisions made by a man so very long ago were instrumental in determining the course of your life.

It was that man, George W. Bush, who also told the nation that Iraq had been responsible for an attack on American soil that brought down two skyscrapers in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, and knocked out a chunk of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. that same day. You probably read about these events when you were in middle school. They are as far removed from you in time as the Eisenhower administration was from your grandfather's time. (Eisenhower was an American president a hundred years remote from your own days.)

Anyway, because of that attack and our fear of those weapons, we launched an invasion of Iraq, a hi-tech pounding the military strategists called "shock and awe," designed to scare the bejesus out of the Iraqis and pave the way for our occupation of the place. We did not call it an "occupation," of course. We called it a "liberation," and we were told that the Iraqis would greet us accordingly.

No stockpiles of weapons were ever found in Iraq after we invaded that country, however, and no connection between Iraq and the September 11 attack was ever established, so the mission had to be redefined. Our purpose was thus transformed, and we were told that our aim was to export democracy to that nation through force of American arms. If this letter reaches you on Iraqi soil in the year 2057, that dream probably has not yet been realized. Had it been realized, there would be no reason for you to be there.

But, in this year of 2007, our leaders have preordained that you will be there overseeing Iraqis in that far off 2057th year of Our Lord. Our Lord, mind you, not the Iraqi's.

All of the people who voted to send you and your comrades to Iraq are now dead, of course, as are most of the people who voted those people into office. All of the people who profited from the early days of the Iraq occupation are now dead, too-all those oil company execs whose profits soared during that long-ago time, and all of the private contractors whose CEOs were awash in government cash. They all died natural deaths far from the sound of gunfire and explosions. They were given lavish funerals, and their last rites were often attended by the politicians who had benefited from the campaign contributions they had made while alive. Their children and their grandchildren never had to volunteer for military service in order to secure a chance to go to college, of course.

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http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/8150

is the correct one

K&R