Een open brief aan de President van de Verenigde Staten
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Brussels, May 30 2013
Open letter to :
The White House
President Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvenia Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 United States
Mr. President,
I am taking this un-usual step to write You a letter, because I am devastated by what is going on in Syria. I see You as one of the main causes, and I want to make use of this letter to explain to You why and maybe what You can do about it.
Let me first tell You, that I used to be an admirer of Yours, and that I had a lot of understanding for almost every government decision You took, taking into consideration that most of the time You did not have a majority in the two chambers, and were obliged to find compromises.
One of the fields where You could not hide Yourself behind bipartisan compromises, was foreign policy. Actually, it is the only field where we can judge Your true leadership. And I have to tell You : You failed this test. Even worse, taking the Syrian case into account : You are a complete disaster. I think, You will agree with me at least that what is happening in Syria (80000+ dead, widespread destructions) is a disaster.
I take You accountable for that disaster because :
1. Not the use of chemical weapons should have been Your red line for action, but the scale of destruction, the number of people killed and the crimes against humanity committed should have been. Your red line, the use of chemical weapons, worsened the situation, since it was an invitation for Bashar Al-Assad to continue his evil terror regime and to little by little kill more than 80000 men, women an d children and destroy the country, ticker still counting.
2. Because of economic reasons , good relationships with Russian and Chinese dictators Putin and Hu (now Xi) were more important to You than the tens of thousands of murdered people, the terrible human rights abuses and the crimes against humanity committed in Syria. You allowed the Russian and Chinese dictators to make a farce out of the United Nations and out of any peace plan proposed within its framework. But, instead of confronting them by putting economical and diplomatic pressure on them, for the reasons explained above, throughout the conflict, You kept calling them “Your friends”.
3. You failed to display leadership. I am not a fan of George W. Bush. But he proved with his team what leadership means. By exercising enormous diplomatic and economic pressure on it’s European allies and on the United Nations, he was able to draw them actively or passively into a wrong war against Saddam Hussein. A leadership You refused to display in order to save the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people.
You see Mr President, I cannot forgive You for that. All the good deeds You do, disappear into nothing weighed by the crimes You commit or abide.
But , Mr President, You can still do something about it . The counter in Syria is still ticking, the manslaughter and destruction are still going on. You went into elections with words like “Yes we can” and “Change”. You too can still change. Take up the leadership that the world bestowed upon You, and make this crime stop. Yes You can !
And If not : return that Noble Peace Price, because You proved to everybody that You are not worthy of it.
Yours sincerely,
Beno Klee