Afghanistan is unwinnable.
From a strategic point of view, there is no victory in Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai is a fraud. He won reelection through outright fraud. Afghani democracy is a myth your generals and handlers repeat to you. The truth is that your decision to escalate will cost American lives that cannot be replaced. I have friends who serve you sir, and you have tonight committed their lives to a cause that is predicated on political strategy.
And here's the hard truth sir. Your political gamble will fail. Many in your constituency -- those of us who sacrificed our time and limited wealth to support your candidacy -- have no patience for your escalation in Afghanistan. It is our brothers and sisters (and LGBT friends and family members whom you still will not recognize as fully equal to the rest of us) who will bear the burden of your decision. The people we love will die for your mistake.
We supported you. We discovered politics because you promised something different -- a government led by the people, of the people, and for the people. The people, sir, are not the bankers of Goldman Sachs. The people, sir, are not the shareholders of innumerable defense firms standing to profit from your decision to escalate an unwinnable war.
President Obama, we are your generation. We see you as a leader who has the capability to live up to his campaign promises. We are heartened that you seem to care about the millions the dream of America has left behind. We hear you talk about health care and we want to believe that you care about us and about our parents and grandparents, and we want to believe that you hear our voices instead of the well-remunerated activists who work for the pharmaceuticals and health insurance companies. We like to think you understand that science is science, and that the "American way of life" is unsustainable, and that our survival as a nation depends on our acceptance of the fact that we must change our daily life less we risk the destruction of the nations whose success we depend on. It may be a hard truth that our future prosperity depends on the fates of others, but it is a truth that cannot be papered over. This world depends on our leadership -- and no amount of denialism or magical thinking can change that fact. Go to Copenhagen as the leader you can be -- one who trusts in reason and confirmed fact over knee-jerk response. We depend on you to articulate the fact that we care deeply about our carbon footprints, that we are indebted to our unborn or young children. We look to you to lead us to a brighter future, instead of the one inaction seems to promise. We enjoy your pop cultural savvy -- it makes you feel like one of us. But you can't brush an unwinnable war off your shoulder.
We will oppose you if you persist in the failed logic that governs Washington's conventional wisdom. We will oppose you if you fail to secure what's left of the middle class against the ravenous greed of the "investor class." You were elected because we -- the average people who listened to you in 2004 and thought you represented the best of America -- had faith in your message of change. We elected you because you promised us something that our generation -- the generation to whom the future belongs -- had not heard from other politicians. But...
Change is not escalation. Change is not preferring Wall Street donors to regular Americans who are drowning. Change is not preferring Cigna and Aetna and Wellpoint to the needs of suffering Americans who voted for you. Change is not appeasing your implacable enemies. Change is not continuing in a denialist climate of climate change denial.
We believed that you were the candidate who would change Washington. We believed that you would fight for us.
And if you don't prove it, we will not support you.
Please, sir, do not waste our lives and money on a war we have no chance of winning. Please, sir, do not heed the misguided advice of your advisers who have every interest in maintaining the status quo.
Heed the voice of those who sacrificed to elect you. Heed the voice of young people who don't want to see their friends and loved ones die for a futile exercise in imperial price. Heed the voice of the elderly, who voted for you because you promised to protect them. Heed the voice of our economic engine -- the workers between 30 and 60 whose livelihoods are in jeopardy. Heed the voice of my father, who works for a manufacturing firm. Heed the voice of my mother, who works as a nurse in neonatal care. And heed the voice of our nation's gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual military members (whose voice it is incumbent upon you to represent) and workers. We are full citizens of the United States of America and have the right to all the benefits and rights which thereupon obtain.
You, sir, are our leader. We elected you to that position. Neglect us at your own peril. If you cannot understand that those of us who sacrificed to help you accede the office you currently obtain had a faith in you to change our current political landscape, please understand that we will not support you or your chosen candidates in 2010 and 2012. We did not elect you because we wanted more war and more support for a broken corporate state. The media and your handlers may dismiss us as the fringe left, but believe them at your peril.
We have faith in you, sir. But don't dismiss us. There will be no war without resistance.
Update: Change made from "your constituency" to "many in your constituency." I recognize that we have differing views here, never meant to discredit that, have the utmost respect for it, and appreciate those who pointed out the problem with language. I would never presume to speak for anyone else on this site and regret that my language leant that implication. That said, I do feel strongly about what I wrote, and hope that responses will be judged according to the merit of my words.