Dear Mr. (soon-to-be) President,

You don’t know me, and technically I’m not an expert in anything- I have no formal schooling much beyond the high school level, have held no civilian career outside of basic retail services, and while I am an OIF vet and current member of the U.S. Military… my role in it has been rather small and low profile thus far. 

That being said, I still want to express my sympathies for the role you are about to assume in the world you have inherited.  Let’s be honest, it’s a nightmare out there.  The economy, heh, well we all know how THAT’s going.  But while we focus strongly on fixing the American economy, there are global matters we must keep a close watch on, because whether we like it or not, since throwing ourselves headlong into the “War On Terror” we are now deeply involved in most every conflict that could even possibly take place in arguably the most destabilized region of the world. 

First, Israel and the Gaza Strip conflict.  I understand where both sides are coming from here.  Hamas and the Palestinians are mad that there isn’t a Palestine anymore, and are bitter with the Israelis who now live in that region because they want their land back.  Israel wants Hamas to stop firing rockets into their country.  I know that’s over-simplified, but there is simply too much here to possibly get into without writing a text book.  Thus far you’ve been standing kind’ve in the background when it comes to this conflict, relying on statements such as “There’s only one President at a time”, when both you and I know that you have been working with great zeal on other aspects of what you’ll be doing as President.  It almost seems like a cop out to wait and see what happens.  One largely quoted reason that the assault on Gaza took place when it did is there was only a short period of time between the end of the ceasefire, and the beginning of your term in office, and while Israel knew Bush would totally be behind blowing things up in a major way, how you would feel was under dispute.  But here we are sir, and you’ll have to decide how America continues in response to their entire debacle. 

I’m not saying Israel is wrong to attack here, however their methods of doing so are mighty questionable, and our silent approval is turning many who were starting to maybe give us the benefit of the doubt with you coming into office against us.  Protests and flag burnings are being held not only in Arab states, but also throughout Europe.  Israel is our ally, however, we’re still looking at at least 1,200 Palestinians dead, near half of that have been children, and that’s not counting the many thousands injured.  Israel has lost 10 soldiers, and 3 civilians since this all began.  This starts to look less like a war, and more like a slaughter, especially when you consider that aid and escape for the Palestinian civilians has been rendered impossible, the only people escaping are the members of Hamas who thought ahead to use their smuggling tunnels and other means to get away as the assault began.  And before anyone accuses me of admonishing one group while ignoring the violence perpetrated by another (the U.S. tends to have pretty staggering numbers differences in our wars as well) I will gladly say that I’m against the death of any civilian, regardless of who causes it and why. 

Anyway, we need to work towards a ceasefire and some semblance of a resolution.  And we can not completely back Israel without backing their methods, and I believe we as a nation would be poorly served to do so.  Not only on moral grounds, but also out of, sadly, some amount of self-interest.  The Arab world was already weary of us after our lack of focus on Afghanistan, and our sudden needless at the time involvement in Iraq. 

Now after making progress in Iraq, and trying to refocus on Afghanistan, here we are again looking at a conflict that will quickly turn to blanket Us vs Them unless we work to mediate all sides.  Egypt and Afghanistan are calling for a stop to the assault and rendering of aid and reconstruction to the region, and usual pot-stirrers Iran, Syria, and others are calling for retribution in the name of the Arab community against Israel.  Violent times are pending with a finger on the trigger if we allow the conflict to continue for much longer.  It won’t matter what nations we bring Democracy to, if in their bitterness and anger they elect violent extremists to office.  If all Israel’s neighbors turn against it in full scale warring, we will have to come to their aid, and that is a battle we can not afford at this time, if ever. 

I don’t have an end resolution, I wouldn’t even begin to know where to look for one because as long as one group loses here, either the Palestinians or the Israelis, that group will be unhappy and looking to continue the fight, but we can’t completely remove one side from the table, that would be genocide, and while there are genocides or near-genocides that we have largely ignored (Armenians in Turkey, Burma, Darfur) we are better than that, and if we aren’t, then we should be. 

I know I’ll be unpopular for speaking against Israel here, even with just the members of this site, and I’m not excusing the actions of Hamas, their actions are criminal and the members of Hamas themselves should pay for them, but there is too much destruction here with the potential for more with no end in sight, so Mr. President, I ask you to prepare, because the moment you assume office, you will be looked towards to see how America will respond to the current state of things in the Gaza conflict, and what you say will have repercussions that will last us many many years, likely beyond your own Presidency, and I’m sure you know all about coming into the job with a lot already on your plate to be cleaned up.

A side note, but somewhat related- India and Pakistan… They are not currently at war with each other, and war is highly unlikely all things considered.  However, they are not truly at peace either, and possibly never will be.  That said, any escalation on either side of their border will only bode poorly for the world.  Pakistan has a direct link to our fight in Afghanistan for starters, and beyond that both are nuclear armed nations, and that last thing the world needs is a close quarters “Cold War” between the two.  Pakistan is a tenuous ally at best, between the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and the continued conflict along their border with Afghanistan in which they strongly demand that we steer clear of their side even when we know for a fact that the extremist factions we are fighting are staged there, we must be very weary of how we tread, we can not afford our fight to suddenly carry across into the two neighboring countries, especially when a 3rd (India) is poised for action even if they don’t desire it.

On the plus side, it does appear that the major conflict in Iraq is over, now we must simply continue to allow the Iraqi people to keep increasing their governing of their own country, and our drawing back and out of their way, after all… that was our end goal all along, right?

You have a lot to handle, and I’ve not even looked at employment, health care, the economy, or anything else that plagues our country.  So I want you to know that if everything is not 100% better in 4 years, I understand.  Progress is all I ask, just make progress.  The more the better. 

Best of luck to you,

~Skitz M. Jones

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