An Open Letter to Donald Trump: You Are Putting the World at Grave Risk

Sir:

I am writing to you in the name of many peace-loving people from all over the world, who are worried about our future and that of our children. A future that your dangerous policies put in terrifying danger.

Your decision to partially withdraw U.S. forces from Syrian territory is responsible for the killings of thousands of civilians. In the process, Turkey has been committing serious war crimes with total impunity. Physicians for Human Rights has received numerous reports that Turkish forces have unleashed chemical weapons--including napalm and white phosphorus--on heavily-populated civilian areas.

Your statements on Iran are also worrisome. Hardly a week passes by in which you threaten to attack Iran although that country has fulfilled the conditions of the agreement with the U.S. and the European countries. We see with increasing concern your efforts to start a military confrontation with Iran based on false premises.

The U.S. has a record of supporting tyrannical regimes all over the world, among them in Iran itself, and oftentimes supported coups that destroyed democracy.

Attacking Iran will mean retaliatory actions that will cause havoc not only in Iran but throughout the region. Such a move would only benefit the arms makers and would leave a trail of destruction the world has seen few times before. Although you are the most powerful man in the world, Sir, you don't have the right to threaten world peace for reasons that are difficult to understand.

Granted, Iran has supported groups in other countries and has armed them with sophisticated weapons. However, Iran has not invaded any other country in more than a century. In contrast, the U.S. has a record of supporting tyrannical regimes all over the world, among them in Iran itself, and oftentimes supported coups that destroyed democracy.

Brett Wilkins, an editor-at-large for the US news at Digital Journal has written recently an enlightening article on US-Iran relations. "Iran isn't without serious faults. However, these pale in comparison to those of the US, which has -and has used--nuclear weapons, staged or supported numerous coups, attacked half a dozen Middle Eastern countries already this century and nearly encircled Iran with military bases. Iran has no nuclear weapons, no bases within 10,000 kilometers of the United States and has never directly attacked the US or, of course, overthrown its government. Who is the real aggressor here?" writes Wilkins.

In 1984, Iran presented a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council condemning Saddam's use of chemical weapons against Iran, based on the Geneva Protocol of 1925. The U.S. instructed its delegate at the U.N. to lobby friendly representatives to support a motion to abstain from the vote on the use of chemical weapons by Iraq. Can we be surprised that Iranians harbor deep resentment against the U.S.?

These people, Sir, the poor of those countries where the U.S. has interfered with their democratic governments and supported instead criminal regimes are the ones who are coming to our borders. And while these things were happening, the US has shown steadfast support for the criminal Saudi Arabian regime, whose nationals were most of those who attacked the U.S. on 9/11.

Your policies, Sir, are putting the world at great risk. We know when wars start, but we cannot predict when or how they will end. In his book, Thank God for the Atom Bomb writer Paul Fussell quotes a poem by Eric Bogle. In that poem, "No Man's Land," a young person sits by the grave of a nineteen-year-old who was killed in the First World War and thus addresses him:

Did you really believe that this war would end wars?

Well, the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,

The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain.

For, William McBride, it all happened again,

And again, and again, and again, and again.