Open Letter

Dear Anonymous,

George Bush has wiretapped less than 300 people without their knowledge and consent. This has led to a few dozen arrests. Those arrested still got a trial, and I'd wager that some were let free because there was no confession and insufficient evidence.

More to the point, what instead would you have us do? Rely on some foreign power or the bunch of crackpots in the supreme court to handle this? Let these guys know that we're tapping them before we listen?

Look, in the kind of war we're fighting, by the time we're done with formalities half of California will be underwater, New York will be on fire and the Pentagon is going to be a memory. We simply cannot afford to give these guys the benefit of the doubt the way we would an organized, uniformed country fighting with the same rules of war.

The era of wartime honor is dead. Americans still stick to their guns as much as they can, because we're good people. We don't just kill indiscriminately, we don't hate an entire group of people just because they look or sound like our enemies, and we are powerful enough that we can afford to fight without bringing to bear our full, unrestrained strength. However, if we cripple the only effective lines of defense we have against the form of attack our enemies use, we'll be hit again and again.

People can play their phony blame games and point fingers at the president, his cabinet, whatever. They can say 9/11 was Bush's fault all they want. It's mere words. It would not change the actual reasons 9/11 happened or who was responsible. We got hit once, and we can get hit again. A bunch of people hopping up and down, blaming the president when it happens will be little consolation to the families of those who will die in that next attack, should we allow it to happen.

But the blame will fall squarely on the shoulders of those who have crippled a president who has done nothing worse than any of his predecessors have done.

From the 60s onward, some Americans have this dumbassed perception that winning a war should be free of sacrifices and compromises. But you know what? If we want to avoid death on a massive scale and achieve our great objectives, then we will have to sacrifice for it. We'll have to do things we don't want to do. We'll have to break our own rules from time to time. We'll have to do things we're not proud of sometimes.

But we'll win. That is what is important in war. This is not a Disney movie. We are not playing football. Those who play their hardest and lose anyway do not walk home with their heads high. They bow down and have their heads cut off. These are the stakes. So quit whining and pipe down, stand up for your country and stand tall, or stand up with the enemies of your country and be branded its enemy in turn.

But you can't have your cake and eat it too.