Letter to President George W. Bush

September 30, 2001

Dear Mr. President,

We, the undersigned, are writing to you at this critical moment to express our profound sadness at the events of September 11th, and to plead with you and those making the very difficult decisions which have to be made at this time for calm and a non-violent stance.

We have all been deeply affected by this tragedy and our hearts and sympathies go to all those who died and to the loved ones they left behind. In the wake of this event there is shock and sadness, and emotions run very high. It is human to want to respond quickly, to find responsible and ensure that this cannot happen again anywhere. However, any violent retaliation only breeds more violence and ensures that future generations will live in a world full of fear, mistrust, and suffering. We urge you and your fellow statesmen to remember that vengeance offers no relief, that retaliation can never guarantee healing, and that to meet violence with violence breeds more rage and more senseless deaths.

Only love leads to peace and justice. We believe it is our duty as a civilized nation to rise above the desire for revenge and to find a way of dealing with this tragedy that is peaceful and good. We do not ask that you ignore what has happened or that those who are responsible not be held accountable. Rather we ask that you lead the world as an example of another way, a better way for all humankind. Further violence leading to the deaths of more innocent people will not resolve this situation or ensure the safety of future generations. This is truly an opportunity to show the world that leadership is earned, not imposed through violence and bullying tactics.

Please Mr.. President, give us all hope for a future where good will truly prevail, with violence no longer existing.

Our goal should be to build bridges of love, respect and understanding among all people. This is the only way to ensure that the tragedy of September 11th and similar tragedies around the world never happen again.

1. Maura Duignan, San Francisco, CA 94110 2. Sarah Ellison, San Francisco, CA 94110 3. Katie Bonier, San Francisco, CA 94114 4. Jane Cote, Somerville, MA 02144 5. Cynthia Pratt, Wellesley, MA 02481 6. Hermine Makman, Cambridge, MA 02138 7. Dorothy Burlage, Newton, MA 02458 8. Emmie Adams, St. Johnsbury, VT 05819 9. Joan C. Browning, Ronceverte WV 24970 10. Nancy Sorrells, Greenville, VA 24440 11. Judith S. Simmons, Churchville, VA 24421 12. Maria S. Bowman, Huntingdon, PA 16652 13. Christy L. Dowdy, Huntingdon, PA 16652 14. Jim Vaughn, Arlington, VA 22205 15. Martin Rock, Washington, DC 20003 16. Kathleen Daugherty, Harrisburg, PA 17104 17. Pastor Dan Schwick, Chicago, IL 60646 18. Pastor Gary Erickson, Compton, IL 61318 19. Pat Erickson, Compton, IL 61318 ! ; 20. Marilyn Ward, Paw Paw, IL 61353 21. Wendy Schnorr, Shabbona, IL 60550 22. Jan Bieser Mendota IL 61342 23. Sarah Pfeifer Compton, IL 61318 24. Tim Ressmeyer, Mokena, IL 60448 25. Faith Ressmeyer , Wivenhoe, UK 26. Wendy E. Penley, Bethel, ME 27. Toby Brewster, Concord, NH 03301 28. George W. Chase III, Concord, NH 03301 29. Elibet Moore Chase, Concord, NH 03301 30. Tom Moore, Rohnert Park, CA 31. Tina Moore, Rohnert Park, CA 32. Sam Coble, Santa Rosa, CA 95402

33. Lama Somananda Tantrapa Tulku, OR 97008

34. Helen Sun, Seattle, WA

P.S. Let me share with you some words of caution from a writer who knows intimately the true nature of the situation in Afghanistan.

I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ron Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean killing innocent people,people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done."And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's going on there.So I want to tell anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing.I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I agree that something mustbe done about those monsters.But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997.Bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holedup in their country.Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan-a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land! mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban.We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make the Afghans suffer? They'realready suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that.New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to movearound. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban - by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time.So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Notlikely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war! between Islam and the West.And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothingleft to lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the west would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else?Tamim Ansary

P.P.S. Let me also share with you a wonderful idea that may totally turn around the karma of this nation as well as the whole world.

Bomb them with butter, bribe them with hope.

A military response, particularly an attack on Afghanistan, is exactly what the terrorists want. It will strengthen and swell their small but fanatical ranks.

Instead, bomb Afghanistan with butter, with rice, bread, clothing and medicine. It will cost less than conventional arms, poses no threat of US casualties and just might get the populace thinking that maybe the Taliban don't have the answers. After three years of drought and with starvation looming, let's offer the Afghani people the vision of a new future. One that includes full stomachs. Bomb them with information. Video players and cassettes of world leaders, particularly Islamic leaders, condemning terrorism. Carpet the country with magazines and newspapers showing the horror of terrorism committed by their "guest". Blitz them with laptop computers and DVD players filled with a perspective that is denied them by their government. Saturation bombing with hope will mean that some of it gets

through. Send so much that the Taliban can't collect and hide it all.

The Taliban are telling their people to prepare for Jihad. Instead, let's give the Afghani people their first good meal in years. Seeing your family fully fed and the prospect of stability in terms of food and a future is a powerful deterrent to martyrdom. All we ask in return is that they, as a people, agree to enter the civilized world. That includes handing over terrorists in their midst.

In responding to terrorism we need to do something different. Something unexpected... something that addresses the root of the problem. We need to take away the well of despair, ignorance and brutality from which the Osama bin Laden would water the gardens of terror.

Kent Madin

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