War on terror bankrupting country – A Letter to the Editor

The Burlington Free Press has run a letter to the editor by Peter Garritano that should be applauded, it is copied in full here:

“I read with interest the letter to the editor “Must impeach Bush, Cheney without delay” (Jan. 7), where there is mention of the end of oil, and can’t help wondering what could have been. 

Wars are fought for resources. Religion and ideology are excuses. Dick Cheney’s secret energy policy of early 2001 probably led to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. I am still waiting for one politician to speak the truth someday. The war on terror is a fraud. In almost seven years and billions of dollars spent on wiretapping, homeland security, and the ultimate disgrace, Guantanamo Bay, we have charged and prosecuted two people. 

If our country were a business we would have had two real customers. A real company would have gone bankrupt years ago. The war on terror is leaving our country bankrupt. If we had spent the money we wasted to apprehend these two people on solar panels and windmills we would have solved our country’s energy problems forever, we would have no need to invade other countries to steal their oil, we could sell them green technology instead of weaponry.

The war on terror is a war on our way of life and we are the terrorists. We have allowed our constitutional rights to be removed, we have blindly stuck to a doomed energy policy and we have diverted hundreds of billions of dollars of our money to prop up these failing policies. Change does not have to be catastrophic but it must start now.”