A Letter to Americans from an Iraqi Blogger

Here is a link to an open letter to Americans from Riverbend. (Those of you who either don't know about or read Riverbend a young woman who has been blogging from Iraq since before we attacked.) Here is part of it, but read it all, please.


"I guess what I'm trying to say is this: Americans, the name of your country which once stood for 'freedom & justice' is tarnished worldwide. Your latest president has proved that the great American image of democracy is just that ---- an image. You can protest, you can demonstrate, you can vote ---- but it ends there. The reigns were out of your hands the moment Bush stepped into the White House. You were deceived repetitively and duped into two wars. Your sons and daughters are dying, and killing, in foreign lands, your embassies are in danger all over the world. 'America' has become synonymous with 'empire,' 'hegemony' and 'warfare.' And why? All because you needed to be diverted away from the fact that your current president is a failure.


Some people associate the decision to go to war as a 'strength.' How strong do you need to be to commit thousands of your countrymen and women to death on foreign soil? Especially while you and your loved ones sit safely watching at home. How strong do you need to be to give orders to bomb cities to rubble and use the most advanced military technology available against a country with a weak army and crumbling infrastructure? You don't need to be strong, you need to be mad.


Americans ---- can things be worse for you? Can things be worse for us in Iraq? Of course they can...only imagine-four more years of Bush."

Thanks to Tena at First-Draft for pointing it out.