What kind of nation are we?

Tuesday night, President Obama is scheduled to go to West Point to deliver a speech about his decision regarding sending troops to Afghanistan.

Click here to view the must read Michael Moore's Open letter to President Obama.

Excerpts:

Dear President Obama,

Do you really want to be the new "war president"? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they've always heard is true -- that all politicians are alike.

Choose carefully, President Obama. You of all people know that it doesn't have to be this way. You still have a few hours to listen to your heart, and your own clear thinking. You know that nothing good can come from sending more troops halfway around the world to a place neither you nor they understand, to achieve an objective that neither you nor they understand, in a country that does not want us there. You can feel it in your bones.

We the people still love you. We the people still have a sliver of hope. But we the people can't take it anymore. We can't take your caving in, over and over, when we elected you by a big, wide margin of millions to get in there and get the job done. What part of "landslide victory" don't you understand?

President Obama, it's time to come home. Ask your neighbors in Chicago and the parents of the young men and women doing the fighting and dying if they want more billions and more troops sent to Afghanistan. Do you think they will say, "No, we don't need health care, we don't need jobs, we don't need homes. You go on ahead, Mr. President, and send our wealth and our sons and daughters overseas, 'cause we don't need them, either."

What would Martin Luther King, Jr. do? What would your grandmother do? Not send more poor people to kill other poor people who pose no threat to them, that's what they'd do. Not spend billions and trillions to wage war while American children are sleeping on the streets and standing in bread lines.

When we elected you we didn't expect miracles. We didn't even expect much change. But we expected some. We thought you would stop the madness. Stop the killing. Stop the insane idea that men with guns can reorganize a nation that doesn't even function as a nation and never, ever has.

Stop, stop, stop! For the sake of the lives of young Americans and Afghan civilians, stop. For the sake of your presidency, hope, and the future of our nation, stop. For God's sake, stop.

Tonight we still have hope.

Tomorrow, we shall see. The ball is in your court. You DON'T have to do this. You can be a profile in courage. You can be your mother's son.

We're counting on you.

Yours,
Michael Moore

P.S. There's still time to have your voice heard. Call the White House at 202-456-1111 or email the President.

It's all been said above. Our nation has become morally bankrupt, as well as financially. We have no business in Afghanistan. Anything we could or should have accomplished, should have been done in the 8 years we have already spent there. They told us we just needed a surge or more troops in Iraq, and then we would be victorious.

We are still there, fighting, dying, killing. And please notice those cost of war charts to the right.... the next time your elected official asks how they will pay for Health care-- tell them cut the war budget.

It is beyond money-- it is a fundamental change in taking action to stop the wrongful acts of the past, and become a nation that is not acting as 911 to the world.

The McChrystal War Generals will always say the solution is more troops, escalated war.

All of Obama's advisors are the same throwbacks from the Bush administration.

Thus we are getting more of the same. This war business is insidious, and inexcusable- and I for one no longer want the blood of other innocent people shed in the name of this country.

I want to have hope.

I want to have peace.

The time is now to act upon these ideals-- not to promote them to sell us the brand, then fall short when the time comes to make the changes we so desperately need.