Mr. President, can you please do the right thing and stop the war in Afghanistan? We have just about had enough. Enough sensationalism: from Saddam's WMDs and his links to the phantom Al-Qaeda, to diagrams of massive cave complexes in Tora Bora that appeared to be out of some James Bond movie, to the chemical and biological weapons labs found in Afghanistan, to zombie-like sleeper cells that are activated by coded subliminal messages broadcast on Al-Jazeera, to loose Pakistani nukes that will be carried away by the Taliban on a donkey, to the latest gift of your drone attacks - the Pakistani Taliban. Enough lies!

The destruction of the Twin Towers was a fluke mass murder by a bunch of terrorists led by an evil genius who is now in your custody, and who, like Zarqawi, used to communicate with Osama bin Laden now and then. That's about it, get over it, it's been eight bloody years. Thank you for putting safeguards and procedures in place to combat terrorism, and your country has avenged itself more than a hundred-fold in the killing of innocents. Enough blood!

Pakistanis seethed when their government gave bases to your forces. I recall being on a flight from Islamabad to Karachi, and a most liberal and well-to-do executive engineer seated next to me could barely contain his rage at the ignominy. And then your drone attacks hit hard on Pakistan's national honor, but its stolid citizens gave you the leeway you required. Now that you've created bitter enmities within Pakistan, and made its army attack its own citizens, pushing it to the brink, please stop. Even your fans have had enough! Enough benefit of the doubt!

When you started to fly the drones into Pakistan, there was no Pakistani Taliban, and you said you were just pursuing Afghans across the border and targeting foreign elements. Now there is a robust well-armed militia that is presenting Rumsfeldian rich targets to your drones, and their attacks have increased 20-fold. They are very successful at generating new targets, some of whom were 5 years old when your war began. You do need new targets, for the original foreign fighters are long dead according to your kill counts. Enough of this twisted logic!

Pakistanis made a choice to support the killing of fellow citizens in return for an illusion of personal safety and for the good of the world. They knew that the choice was shaped for them, and they still went along with it – for naught. Enough of your Long War!

Now, let us take a deeper look.

The Long War and its Absurdity
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The Long War, characterised as US military policy in 2006 [http://www.defenselink.mil/qdr/archive/20060206qdr1.html] , includes "shaping the choices of countries at strategic crossroads" as one of its goals.

Now, it is all well and good for the US to formulate policies in its own best interests, but considering the dominant position of the US, the ineffectiveness of the UN, problems facing humanity (food, water, environment, economic stability, human dignity), and this policy requires some reflection.

What is its logical end? Eternal peace, or eternal slavery?

Let us assume that the Pentagon is right and through its military might, it succeeds in 'strategically shaping the choices of countries' so that all countries love the US and work in its interests. Let us believe for a moment that all countries adopt Western liberal democratic ideals, and demilitarize voluntarily. Then what happens when there is a conflict of interest? Just as there can be a conflict of interest between the US and UK, or between California and Texas. Do we need a forum to talk out the conflict, or will military force convince these countries to roll over. Were the goals of this US policy peaceful, it should be strengthening the UN forum, and shaping it on the lines of the US Congress and co-operating with, instead of opposing, international courts. Anything less than that implies a shaping without representation; in other words, military rule by force over the rest of the world.

Human beings are conditioned to rebel against such outcomes. So, unless we believe that Orwellian mind-shaping fiction can actually be realized, this policy is aggressive, anti-peace, and doomed to failure: either the US globalizes the universal values enshrined in its constitution and the West rightfully claims credit for the peaceful future of humanity, or the Orwellian Eastasia will respond to the inevitable upheaval.


Ruling over Men and the 'End of History'
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The US is the de facto ruler of the world. Let us look at what it means to rule over men:

The basic instincts of individual survival and tribal grouping that humans learnt at the dawn of our history still apply. Almost all of us subject ourselves to authority willingly in turn for justice and peace. When our survival radar picks up signals of exploitation, we rebel. No one has ruled for long without the provision of peace and justice, and the implicit consent of the ruled, regardless of whatever name may be in vogue: globalization, democracy, dictatorship, dynastic monarchy or khilafah.

Most recently, a perpetual rule solution was envisioned by Francis Fukuyama: a book titled 'The End of History', which served as the neocon Bible and led directly to the Iraq war and indirectly to the Long War.

He was right, to a certain degree. Western enlightenment, pursuit of reason, and civilization has given humanity a lot and has been a genuine beacon of progress, but only while it had an ideological mirror to look into for comparison. Since the World Wars, and especially since the end of the Cold War, Western ideology is descending to be but a tool of opportunistic merchants (used in a broad sense) and exploiters. I believe humanity started regressing in the late 70s or early 80s, and genuine innovation and thought in solving the world's most pressing problems slowed down to a trickle. We went to the moon in 1969, the Internet was born in the same year, Mariner 9 orbited Mars in 1971, the Concorde flew in 1976, and Voyager I left Earth in 1977.

As a child, I remember UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, ILO and WHO had the utmost respect and corresponding success, and represented the solution to humanity's problems. Problems that seemed solvable then remain intractable even today as creative people survive on crumbs falling off the table of corporations who own politicians who, in turn, regularly scold the UN for standing up for human dignity and egalitarianism, and for not going along with deceptions, and for not creating enough conflict, and most of all, for giving an equal voice to the leaders of nations that they do not agree with. Sadly, these august organizations have had their budgets gutted, and have been replaced in stature by G7, G8, G20, Davos, OECD and WTO – all ultimately controlled by the merchants.


Economic and Legal Injustice
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Young men are unemployed and disillusioned by the lies of politicians and the exploitation of merchants. Full employment in exploding populations is very hard, and the imposition of economic policies of mature economies on these countries creates unemployment and resentment.

Meanwhile, merchants prowl, looking for corrupt leaders and dictators, and loan them money, creating 'sub-prime crises' and 'foreclosures' on an international scale. Yes, it is the lack of integrity of corrupt politicians, but what good is an international legal or trade system if it does not look out for the vulnerable? We can see the fallout of such an approach after the US economic crisis: hard-working people with jobs are unable to keep a roof over their heads and take care of their sick children. The merchant shrugs and walks away, muttering 'the terms were in the disclaimer, they should have read it'. International merchants use diplomatic channels to open up markets of poor countries to manufactured goods, while shrugging off subsidies to Western farmers as 'too bad, we can get away with it.'

We are almost at the saturation level of consumption, and that is leading to a prolonged global demand and employment downturn; all the while most economists are busy justifying corporate actions so that their corporate MBA programs are successful.

Other academics are not far behind: they justify torture by using fallacies, and dehumanize Muslims, and yet the majority of academia remains silent, scared of the corporate media. Where is objectivity, and where is human dignity? With thought leaders in intellectual disarray, and the media intellectually dishonest, people around the world are generally becoming more cynical, xenophobic, volatile and mob-like.


Outcome of the War in Pakistan
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Pakistan did not choose to be the first theater in this Long War, but having been chosen, Pakistan is perhaps best suited to test out this hypothesis to its logical end. What outsiders rarely understand is that the general lack of formal rule of law is balanced by informal authority structures in Pakistan: teachers, imams, peers, landlords, waderas, and even local gangs. There is a strong code of honor in all ethnic areas of Pakistan, and much more unites Pakistanis than separates them. Add to this is the deep spirituality, resilience, pragmatism and independence of its people, and you have the ideal conditions to test out your Long War; and for this experiment the rest of the world should be grateful!

Pakistani militants may be well-armed and working against the rule of law, but they are Pakistani citizens. We can catch them, ambush them, try to apprehend them, and if necessary, kill them in combat. But we cannot drop bombs on their families. That is inhuman and we will soon be fighting the babies that are being born today, who will be raised by their widowed mothers with bedtime stories of who killed their father.

So, where does this cycle end? As long as bombs rain on their homes, they will rise up in arms, bringing down more bombs on their homes. Eventually, they will retreat to caves or to cities, but they will not surrender. That has been their nature for centuries, and Pakistan should be proud of such brave men, even though they may be misguided by the mullahs, and being forced to take up arms. The world's smartest military knows this, but it is prepared to live with the consequences as the US has decided to rule the world through force. As such, it is a duty for every peace-loving human to oppose this doomed Long War policy, if not for their brothers, then for the sake of preventing another world war.

No one wishes death or injury on any American or NATO soldier, but neither can Pakistanis wish it on their kin who are innocent civilians, and not paid belligerents half a world away from their bases. While very few Pakistanis want to live under Taliban rule, the majority wish the Taliban well in their fight against the Americans and the North Atlantic forces who seem to have lost their way and ended up in the wrong ocean.

Such are the fruits of a misguided policy and falsified choices; and such are the ways of merchants when not reined in by nobility of thought. And then, such is the rebellion of the indomitable human spirit.

Mr. President, stop the war! Now! The world has had enough!