Letter to America

Dear America:

We are a nation at war, but yet we do not know how to talk about it properly. We argue about facts that are wrong or skewed. We read one article about war and think we know everything this is to know about it. We find it hard to think that someone could have an opposing view from our own. These are the issues that need to be resolved before effectively talking about war.

Not everything we do is wrong though. Our passion for war is great as it leads us to take a stand on the issue and have great debates and dialogs about it. This can be seen with the current Presidential nomination process, where record voter turnouts have caused the candidates to listen to the voters call for change in Iraq and the country's foreign policies. On the news and on websites people are constantly arguing about war and how they feel about the subject, causing the Presidential nominees to really listen and try to solve what we feel are the problems we face everyday.

But we still have a way to go in order to talk about war more effectively. Knowledge is a key component in being able to correctly talk about war. No matter where you stand, we need to understand both sides of an argument, as well as knowing exactly what war entails. We've seen this before, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. states in his speech "A Time to Break the Silence: Beyond Vietnam," in regards to what was actually happening in Vietnam, "They [Vietnamese] watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops....They see children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food." As with Vietnam, we need to see the actual occurrences of war to be able to get a better picture of what is going on. We need to be educated of actual events and how the opposing side sees us so that we can have more informed discussions about war. By knowing the facts, we will not have to have a one sided discussion and can instead use different perspectives and facts to better argue positions on war.

Let's stay passionate and become knowledgeable America.