Dear G Dubya Bush:

When wartime comes, the argument goes, it’s time to fall in line behind our national leader, support his position, and do what he says to do. If we disagree, tough shit: the patriotic thing to do is go along. The funny thing is, I thought this was a “democracy.” You know, that system of government where the people are actually trusted to make decisions about their own welfare?

What separates me from you and your supporters, Mr. Bush, is that I do not believe that unjustifiable bloodshed will prevent further terrorism in the world. However, I’m not so naive as to believe that attacks against any nationality or political philosophy who uses violence as a means for self-promotion makes the United States government an innocent protector of global righteousness. I believe that the United States is unique in that it has the power to stop the cycle of global violent retribution. But how best can civilization as we know it be defended, by engaging the world in education, truthful dialogue, and mutual cooperation or with bombs, wiretaps, and metal detectors?

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, giving birth to the very thing it seeks to destroy. If we murder the murderers, we ourselves become murderers. You have made the objective of this war clear: to rid the world of evil. These days, “evil” is a term most often used by you to describe those people and organizations that were involved in the planning and execution of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in the United States. However, there’s been no evidence up to this point that Iraq was involved in those attacks. You have described your dedication to the hunt for what you call “The Evil One” or “A Cult of Evil” on several occasions. Do you mean to suggest that Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and North Korea are in league with Satan? Can Satan and his evil demons be destroyed by bombs? Mr. Bush, you seem to love the idea of a fight against pure evil. It suits your boyish personality, reflecting a model of morality not often found outside of comic books. It may be personally satisfying and politically expedient for you to conduct a series of crusades against evil, but in the end we must learn from history that those crusades will be no more successful than the crusades of Europe’s Dark Ages.

“Anybody who tries to affect the lives of our good citizens is evil.” - President George W. Bush

So does that mean that because my government is restricting the freedom of its citizens, invading their privacy, detaining them against their wills for almost three years without access to lawyers or Due Process, trampling over their civil rights, and lying to them over matters of grave importance, that we should consider our own government to be evil? It would seem so.

You profess to be a religious man, a Christian as I recall. I even remember reading in several news reports that you believe yourself to have been annointed by “god” to fight this “evil” that you perceive in the world. Hello? I think someone should inform you that this is the height of delusion, supposing to know just what the supposed supreme ruler of the universe prefers… a universe of at least 100 billion galaxies, each with about 100 billion stars, and countless planets around those stars, and doubtlessly populated by intelligent life and civilizations that we can’t even imagine. Not only is this supposed supreme ruler going to hear you in the first place, but “god” is going to pay some special attention to you, because you are so special. This says a whole lot more about you than “god,” and what it says isn’t too flattering: you either believe that you can read the mind of “god,” that you have special access to “god” for your special requests, that you can tell “god” what to do, or that you just plain ARE “god.” To protectively delude yourself into thinking you are “god,” to act as though you are divine, to soothe your terror by authorizing acts of vengeance that have the curious effect of throwing others into paroxysms of falsely holy counter-reaction — is unacceptable. What it really says to me is that you are afraid — scared shitless by the looks of things — and that you couldn’t tell the truth from a lie if it walked up and slapped you in the face. The whole idea of organized religion is that somebody’s got a monopoly on truth and the rest of us had better shut up and listen. Unfortunately, we don’t really know whose truth is really true, and apparently you weren’t listening to your own religious messenger when he allegedly said…

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” - Jesus : Book of Matthew, chapter 5, verses 38-45

I can sum that up in three words: Love One Another. Notice that he didn’t say: Love only your own race, religion, country, economic class, political party, or anything of the sort. In fact, he kind of made a point that you should love even those who are so very different from yourself… more different than even you can imagine.

“I’ve got a job to do, and that’s to explain to the American people the truth. And the truth is that we’re now facing a new threat for freedom; that on September 11th, war was declared on the United States, not by a religious group, not by one country versus another, but by people motivated by evil. And I’m going to make it clear to the world what I made clear to America, that this great country will not let evil stand.” - President George W. Bush

So why did we attack Iraq, who had nothing to do with 9/11 and had no WMD, yet we didn’t attack Saudi Arabia when most of the hijackers were Saudis and it’s been shown to the world that the Saudi government ran charity organizations that supported terrorism? And why did we allow Saudi citizens to return to Saudi Arabia just after 9/11 when no one else was allowed to travel? And why didn’t we capture Osama Bin Laden when we had him cornered in Afghanistan in November of 2001? And which family in America has the closest ties to the Bin Laden family? That’s right, Mr. Bush, it’s your own family. So my question to you, Mr. Bush, is why didn’t you tell the American people the truth?

Sincerely,
The Evil Queen