Good Evening, Faiza!

Best wishes to you and your entire family. I hope that this letter has found you in good health and spirits.

I will be brief, or at least try to. I can only say that I am sorry for your pain and suffering. I suppose that I am one of those faceless Americans who support this war, if only for that fact that we truly felt convinced that we were in imminent danger. Even after much investigation and introspection, it still appears that way to me. I doubt that this invites your friendship or compassion.

Now that the ball is rolling, however, there is little to do but to see it through. It certainly seems that a hasty exit will do more harm than good. Perhaps I am naive, since I do not believe in some grand conspiracy of empire or oppression. Instead, I think that we are all human, and that we will continue stumbling forward as best we can. Regular people like you or I make mistakes every day... Powerful countries run by regular people make the same mistakes, but they bring forth greater consequences. I truly believe that despite the many horrors and evil that exist today, mankind as a whole is moving in a good direction.

I doubt that is very consoling to you.

I wish that there was something that I could say that would give you even an ounce of hope, but from all that I read there isn't much that I can do personally to affect your struggle.

Still, I wish that it was not so.

In the end, our troops will be gone and I can only hope that your people and mine can forge some kind of useful friendship that benefits everyone... and that the government you establish will truly represent your people even if many of the people there now don't think very kindly of us at the moment.

I hope that this will take place as soon as humanly possible.

Take care, and I look forward to reading your point of view, critical of my country or not.

Very Respectfully,

Michael E. Cummins
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA
http://www.i-magery.com

Posted by Michael at August 5, 2004 12:09 AM