A Thousand Shards of Glass

1 December 2010

President George W. Bush

Crawford, Texas

Dear President Bush,

This is a letter I had hoped never to write but in light of your recent public statements I feel that I now have no choice.

On September 11, 2001 my wife, Dr. Kris Hardin, and I watched in horror as planes flew into the ‘Twin Towers’ in New York City. I spent the better part of the day controlling my anger and realized then, that it would be necessary, at some point, to respond to the attacks. I supported that view, but with the caveat that first we must be very clear as to who had planned and executed the deed and felt it essential that evidence be presented to the American people prior to any military response.

I had also hoped that we, and you, would be calm and thoughtful and not act too quickly or carelessly in the midst of national shock. I was equally concerned that there would be powerful forces in the country pushing for war, for a variety of reasons and interests, under the guise of patriotism.

At the time of the attacks, and for some time thereafter, I was wishing you well and tried to understand and empathize with the pressures that you must be confronting and the multiple possibilities being weighed at such a momentous time. No matter the weight however, I was still expecting from you and my government, sober, thoughtful and lawful leadership.

As time went on, I became increasingly disturbed by your careless words such as ‘Bring it on,’ which I thought particularly unwise given that it would not be you in the line of fire. And then, during a journalist function, you made a joke of not finding ‘weapons of mass destruction’ which I found insensitive, cruel and indifferent. Sir, did you ever consider how that joke might be received by American and Iraqi families who had lost loved ones in the war?

My journal entry of 31 March 2007 expressed my concern:

While watching the news over the last few days, I have seen repeated clips of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. There is the President telling jokes about subpoenas while the Speaker of the House laughs. I cannot tell if she is really laughing or being nervously polite. Then there is a clip of the President’s main adviser and strategist, Karl Rove, being asked what he likes to do in his spare time. He answers that he likes to tear the heads off of small animals or some such nonsense I think. I guess that is humor in the Bush White House. Then a hip-hop song begins to play and Rove starts to dance. The MC yells, ‘What’s your name?’ and Rove answers something like ‘Master Rove.’ All the while he is dancing and singing, a well-known television journalist is dancing behind him, laughing and having a grand old time. Other people in the audience, including a number of prominent news people, are laughing and moving to the music as well. I cannot forget that while this bizarre party is going on Americans and others are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan and it all feels so unseemly, so profoundly immoral (a word I rarely use) and insensitive. As I watched this display, I wondered if any of the parents who had lost children in the war were also watching and if so what they thought. For even a moment did it cross their minds that their sons, daughters, fathers and mothers might have, just might have, died for nothing? I hope not.

I also wondered if when men were landing, killing and dying on Normandy, was Ike dancing the Tango somewhere safe and drinking with a bunch of scoundrels who in one way or another profited from the war. Watching the so-called journalists and power people drink, eat and dance, I realized that we are not in this together. I could not help but think of the estimates that have come out of Johns Hopkins University and the Lancet, which estimates that nearly 600,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed. I don’t know. People, of course, dispute those numbers and I understand. If I were responsible for that much death, I would also not want it to be true.

I thought about an Iraqi mother who had lost her son and what she would be thinking as the President joked and Rove danced and the journalists laughed. Maybe she would hate us, maybe forever.

The grotesque dancing continued as I recalled the pictures of the murdered Americans in Somalia and Iraq who had had their bodies mutilated and dragged through the streets as crowds cheered and yes, danced. Rove kept moving on the screen and try as I might I could not see a difference between either savages.

At some point I began to inform myself about your tenure as Governor of Texas and discovered that, while in office, over 130 people had been executed in the state with the last being Mr. Claude Howard Jones. I found that on a number of occasions there had been media reports suggesting that you never spent more than ten to fifteen minutes reviewing capital cases. At the time, I found that reporting suspicious for surely, I thought, this could not be correct, for no one would be so cavalier with people’s lives. Now I find that the DNA testing that was not done prior to Mr. Jones’ execution has now been done and the result is that it is not Mr. Jones’ DNA. [Reported on NPR.]

These events began to suggest a long pattern of indifference, but still, I was trying to keep an open mind and explore all alternate possibilities for such conduct. Then came Abu Ghraib, Rumsfeld’s ‘Stuff happens’ crack, Katrina and, finally, the whiff of lies and torture.

Increasingly I became uncomfortable with you, first, as the leader of the United States, and then, with you as a man.

In London, at a dinner party, I defended you somewhat, as people questioned your intelligence. I immediately stated that I felt their criticisms were wrong-headed and that what they perceived as a lack of intelligence was really indifference. It was at that dinner party that I first voiced what I had been feeling for a number of months previously.

I am the son of a soldier who, unlike you and me, saw the hell of war first hand and who had a profound distrust of people who promoted war but seemingly were never in, or near, the fighting. This point is particularly directed to Mr. Cheney who, throughout his career, has been such a person.

I have met with such thugs before in Hungary and Turkey, Morocco and Cuba as well as in France and England. They are all of a kind and can be found in all countries. These individuals are neither left nor right but rather a type of corporate immoralist whose only allegiance is to ‘more,’ both for themselves and their cronies at the expense of everything and everyone else. Unlike you or Mr. Cheney I learned long ago that patriotism was more than the parroting of slogans or the wearing of a flag pin.

All of these cumulative actions started to suggest to me that perhaps you were not only an indifferent man but also a dishonorable one.

And now, I see you in an interview and you say in one breath, that you did give the OK for enhanced interrogation (torture) and then go on to say that you are content with your life and all that you have done. As a result of your statements I have had to bridle my anger again.

A courageous and honest man would not come up with ‘newspeak’ to disguise the reality of torture. He would call it as it is and then take responsibility for it but I have come to understand that you are not such a man. What you are sir, as you have stated from your own mouth, is someone who gave the order to torture people in United States custody and you did that in my name and that I cannot let stand.

In Rumsfeld vs. Padilla, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his dissent to the court: ‘For if this Nation is to remain true to the ideals symbolized by its flag, it must not wield the tools of tyrants even to resist an assault by the forces of tyranny.’

The coin of tyrants, throughout the ages, has been fear. And during your time as President you, Mr. Cheney and others, used fear to such an extent that, even today, friends whom I respect and trust say, after seeing this letter, to exercise caution and reconsider. They have said that you, and your hidden hands, could cause me misery and difficulties in addition to the serious difficulties that my dear wife and I now face. But I am not afraid of you. I am ashamed of you.

I thought it only right to contact you before writing to the International Criminal Court asking them to please begin an investigation concerning your and Mr. Cheney’s admissions that you ordered torture on individuals in US custody. I know that the ICC has no jurisdiction in the United States, but I feel that it is essential for some non-American institution to involve itself in reviewing what transpired and where blame should be placed. To simply let your statements and actions pass without response makes a mockery of all that I have been taught that is fundamental to a decent and honorable society. I simply could not turn away.

Sincerely,

Michael Katakis