An open letter to: The President of the United States

From: Joseph W. Reid, Jr.
         Retired Electronic Design Engineer, U.S. Geological Survey

Re: A strategic plan to bring peace to the middle east.

Dear Mr. President,

First off, let me say I know how impossibly presumptuous this must sound of me to think that I, a raggedy old retired engineer, might have a workable solution to the problems of the middle east when all the best and wisest minds of your administration, and of the rest of the world for that matter, cannot seem to come up with one. But hear me out, sir, for, while I may appear to be too far from the problem to know and see it clearly, sometimes distance can bring a much-needed perspective unavailable to those working in the front lines, so to speak.

PART I.

Having said that, let me begin by reviewing the plan formulated by one of our all-time best strategic thinkers, President George Washington. I speak here of his solution to the problem of what is generally referred to as the whiskey rebellion, whereby, as you may already know, he was early on in his presidency forced to deal with a group of whiskey distillers in Pennsylvania who refused to pay a whiskey sales tax levied by the new Congress.

Basically, President Washington’s solution consisted of three interactive components. First, the President successfully assumed the moral high ground by placing the whiskey tax issue within the context of a larger, clearly moral proposition by reminding the rebels that without tax revenues, their new and struggling Republic could not survive. And who better to pay some of those taxes then those affluent enough to buy whiskey? Second, being himself a military man, President Washington was aware that in negotiations between adversaries, what cannot be won on the battlefield cannot be won at the peace table. So he ordered the militia of a number of neighboring states to prepare to march on the relatively small number of rebels engaged in the protest. And third, by virtue of the fact that the militia was already assembled and ready to go, President Washington injected a sense of urgency to the proceedings. Which would not have been the case had he simply threatened the rebels with military action, rather than actually calling up the militia for duty.

Thus the rebels were persuaded not only to join the President on the moral high ground and help see the fledgling nation through its first hard times, but they were forced to do so right away, negating the sometimes endless bargaining and stalling that can take place in such situations.

PART II

I would propose, Mr. President, you employ the same overall three-point strategy in the middle east. Of course your problem is far more complex than the one faced by President Washington. There’s the Palestinean/Israeli conflict, the problem of Saddam Hussein, the question of the American presence in the middle east, and, of most immediate importance to America, the Islamic terrorists who have sworn to kill as many Americans wherever and whenever they can. Including, when at all possible, here in our own country. The situation is further muddled because of the demonstrated ambivalence of the political leaders of the Muslim countries with whom you must deal in your attempts to bring peace to the middle east and safety once again to our shores. For, while decrying the violent ways of their Muslim terrorist brothers, and swearing to help us bring them to justice, by their all too obvious lack of effort in achieving these ends, these leaders are, if not outright sympathetic to them, certainly far more frightened of the terrorists than they are of us.

Since your problem seems to be so different from the one faced by President Washington, how, then, can you adapt his three-step solution to the middle east? Actually, it will be easier than you might think.

First of all, let’s consider the first step, which is to unequivocally stake out the moral high ground. This requires you to counter the charges by the terrorists that America is “the great Satan”. Now of course we Americans, as well as our allies and most of the rest of the reasonable people in the world, know otherwise. But, and without going into it here any further, because of the way their religion requires them to look at the rest of the world, most middle eastern Muslims do not as a rule know this. Indeed, they know very little about America, and Americans, at all. Which is a major reason why they say they don’t trust us, and why so many accept without question the negative accusations and other statements the terrorists, and many of their religious leaders as well, are making about us.

To quickly set the record straight, then, I would suggest you might go back only to December 7th, 1941, and remind them of the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, during which some 3000 Americans were killed. (Sound familiar?) The next day President Roosevelt declared war on Japan and Germany, and three years and nine months later the Japanese empire lay in ruins, with her armed forces crushed, her cities leveled, and millions of her citizens dead. And, even though many innocent civilian Japanese were killed, no one disputed our moral and legal right to do these terrible things. For we were entitled to make sure no more Pearl Harbors would ever happen again. Then, as a result of Japan’s unconditional surrender, American soldiers occupied the Japanese home islands, at which time they could have taken unopposed all of Japan’s treasures, as Saddam Hussein did when he attacked Kuwait. But, again, we chose the moral high ground. Instead, we required only that Japanese leaders formulate a new constitution guaranteeing a democratic form of government with free elections, otherwise helped the Japanese to rebuild their country, and within a few years began to pull out. Similarly, in Europe, the American Marshal Plan distributed billions of American taxpayer dollars to friend and recent foe alike to aid in the reconstruction of war-torn Europe. Obviously, then, America is not an evil nation.

Furthermore, America, which was at the end of WWII the only super power in existence, and the only country with atomic weapons, could have taken over any part of the world it wanted to, including the oil rich middle east. But it did not. Instead, among many other actions through the intervening years, with its world wide coalition of allies it threw Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait and, with its NATO allies, stopped the mass murdering of Muslims in Bosnia. Obviously, then, while our methods have, and with sometimes good cause, been called to task by others, America has consistently tried to interact with other countries to bring peace to the world.

On the other hand, the Muslim terrorists have sworn to murder Americans wherever and whenever they can, regardless of whether they are innocent children or not. Indeed, these terrorists have tried with all their might to obtain whatever types of weapons of mass destruction are available so that they can massacre as many Americans as possible. These terrorists, then, and all those who support them, are the evil ones. Therefore it is we Americans, and all those reasonable and peace-loving peoples of the world fighting with us against the Muslim terrorists, who have the moral high ground.

Which brings us to part II of the strategic plan. The presumption of overwhelming force. Actually, Mr. President, this part is easier for you than it was for President Washington. For whereas he had to create his overwhelming force, your militia, in the form of land and “boomer”- based strategic nuclear missiles, plus powerful tactical military forces as well, already exist. All you have to do, Mr. President, is to forcefully remind the good people of the middle east that should the need arise, America will not hesitate to use them.

And now to part III of the strategic plan. The need for a sense of urgency such that the parties involved will work out a peaceful solution to the problems of the middle east as quickly as possible. And again, Mr. President, you need only point out to all concerned the situation as it already exists. Which is, if the terrorists somehow make good on their threats to kill more Americans, and especially should they manage to set off some kind of weapon of mass destruction in America, then Americans will no longer cry out for justice, which is all they have asked for up to now, but for revenge. No longer will they be satisfied for those responsible for the 9/11 massacre to be brought to justice, and to know such evil times will never happen again. Instead, all Americans will remember the TV images of the Muslim throngs laughing and cheering in the streets of the middle east as 3000 of us were slaughtered on 9/11, and they will say “ENOUGH!”, Mr. President, “you must stop this now!” And, with the terrorists completely to blame, you will be forced to turn to our military leaders to make sure no such evil events ever occur again. And portions of the middle east may well become the middle of nowhere.

Of course, there will be a great outcry from all over the world at such a suggestion. And for all sorts of reasons. But always the fact that Americans are dying will be ignored. So naturally you must be careful how you state the case for the tactical and—almost certain—nuclear retaliation which must take place should another massacre of Americans occur. But you must also be forceful enough so all will understand that, since the good people of the middle east are truly the only ones who can stop the terrorists, they are morally responsible for doing so.

You might even remind them, Mr. President, of what the Japanese admiral Yamamoto, the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor, said while all around him were laughing and cheering at what they had accomplished that day. Instead of laughing with them, he was heard to say that he feared they had but awakened a sleeping tiger. He was, of course, right. Except that now the tiger is ten thousand times more powerful than it was 50 years ago.

The overall point here, Mr. President, is twofold. First, that only the good people of the middle east have the capability of stopping these terrorists completely, and that, like it or not, they have the moral obligation to do so. And second, if they choose not to do so, then the terrorists will turn out to be far more dangerous to them than the terrorists ever could be to America.

PART III

Assuming for the moment, then, that such an atmosphere of cooperation has been established, let’s take a summary look at how the peace negotiations might proceed.

First of all, of course, the good and honorable people of the middle east must agree to stop the terrorists in their tracks so they can no longer threaten Americans or anyone else. As a quid pro quo America might need to consider recalling some, or perhaps all, of the Americans, military and civilian, now residing in the middle east. However, you might remind the negotiators, Mr. President, that you would first be obliged to do this in any event, should the need for drastic military action present itself. Thus, as the old saying goes, the good people of the middle east may want to be careful of what they wish for in this regard.

As to the problem of Saddam Hussein, in this new atmosphere the good citizens of Iraq might be more receptive to the idea of getting rid of him. Indeed, they might realize that the resumption of U.N. arms inspections, or even Saddam’s forceful removal by outsiders, could turn out to be the least of their worries.

Finally, with regard to the terrible Palestinean/Israeli conflict taking place, this has of course always been a difficult problem to solve. On the face of it one might think that to come to a fair resolution of the problem we need only to establish who actually is entitled to the lands now incorporated into the nation of Israel. But how far back in history do we go to determine the rightful owners? To the end of WWII, before the nation of Israel ever existed? If we did this, then the disputed territories would legally belong to those Arabs living there at the time. However, might we then go back even farther in history and try to establish what territories the Israelites might have once been entitled to? And, even were we to be able to do this, there still remains the fact that the nation of Israel has existed for over half a century and will not go away.

To deal with this problem as fairly as possible, then, or so it seems to me, all sh1ould agree that the state of Israel should continue to exist, but within its original borders, and the Palestinians should hold title to the lands they currently occupy. However, significant reparations should be paid to the Palestinians for having to give up the land now incorporated into the state of Israel. Perhaps Israel should pay these reparations. In which case America might shoulder some of the burden. After all, as a result of Islamic terrorists’ threats, we’re now having to budget tens of billions for national security each year. Perhaps some of this money would be better spent to bring peace to the middle east.

Or maybe there should be a tax levied on every barrel of oil leaving the middle east. It is certainly in the best interests of all the countries of the world using this oil to see that peace returns to the middle east. After all, radioactive oil is of no use to anyone.

However it is worked out, it seems right and fair to me that these reparations could then be used as wages to Palestinian workers and so forth to build new schools, hospitals, water and waste treatment plants, roads, public buildings, and parks, etc., creating an infrastructure for a new Palestinian state to rival any other nation on earth.

Well, Mr. President, there you have the gist of what I wanted to say. I don’t know if I’ve done you any good or not. Certainly there’s a lot more to all this than I know about. However, being an American, I wanted to get my two cents worth into the discussion.

Godspeed, sir.

Joseph Reid
Lakewood, Colorado
21 October 2002