An American Response

Message to H.E. Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
From the American People

Given the technical difficulty of convening a meeting of our entire population of three hundred million, and the fact that your letter was addressed to “Noble Americans,” among which I count myself, I trust that you will forgive my presumptuousness in providing a unilateral response to your recent communiqué. In truth, even were it feasible to convene a meeting of our entire population to formulate a unified response to your missive, such a response would be impossible due to the blessed diversity of opinion which we, as truly free citizens, embrace. Please rest assured, however, that there are many millions of Americans who share my views and would gladly affix their signatures to this letter were they given the opportunity.

You profess to share our commitment to freedom, human dignity and integrity, our devotion to the cause of freedom, justice and equity for all human beings. You would have us believe that your course is noble, your goals humane, your mission one of pristine glory for all of mankind. Sir, we know the truth.

Our Constitution grants us true freedom, freedom unequalled on this planet. We are free to speak our minds, publicly and without fear of retribution. We are free to worship as we please, or to refrain from worshipping at all. We have the right to select those who will represent us in our government, to criticize them when we feel it is warranted and to replace them if we feel they have failed. We are tolerant of diversity not because our government mandates our tolerance, but because we understand that diversity makes us stronger. We are fiercely independent and often obnoxiously proud of our freedoms. We can be very arrogant, but it is an arrogance born of the knowledge that we have found a superior way of life, and it is that very way of life that we would gladly export to the rest of the world.

These freedoms did not come without a cost, nor have they remained without our constant vigilance and strength. No other nation is as polarizing as ours; none attracts as much interest, both from those who love us and those who hate us.

We do not seek to annex land from other nations, or to appropriate their goods. We seek only fair, peaceful and mutually beneficial interactions with our global neighbors. We detest tyranny and injustice in any form, and are willing to die to prevent it, wherever it exists.

You speak of our Administration’s “lies” and “deception.” Our Administration does not have the luxury of being able to lie to us – as free citizens, we have access to information from myriad sources to allow us to discover the truth.

You speak of our soldiers wondering why they were sent to Iraq, and their families being discontent with their absence. Our soldiers know precisely why they are in Iraq, because they volunteered to go there; they are in Iraq to liberate millions of people who had, for far too long, lived under the despotism of Saddam Hussein. Their families pray for their safety, and wish that their sons and daughters, husbands and wives were home with them, but the vast majority of those family members would take up arms in an instant and serve alongside their loved ones to defend our way of life.

You criticize our handling of prisoners captured in this fight for freedom. I submit that our handling of prisoners is much more humane and just than the handling we receive from the enemy, and, indeed, even more benevolent than your nation’s treatment of your own citizens, should they show any sign of dissent. Those prisoners were actively pursuing the death of Americans, on or off the battlefield, and are not worthy of kindness or consideration, but it is given anyway.

Your lack of understanding of Americans has led you to believe that the very vocal dissent of our politicians and pundits is a sign of weakness. You interpret our disagreements as signs of division in the ranks. Our dissent is merely a part of our process. As Hugo Chavez learned when he spoke so boldly at the United Nations, it is acceptable for us to express discontent with our President, but not for outsiders to do so. Given a choice between an American President who makes us angry and an Iranian President who would have us submit, we will choose our own every time, and die to defend him, if necessary.

You point out that hundreds of thousands of Iranians live amongst us in friendship and peace – does it not seem strange to you that so many of your compatriots would rather live here, amongst infidels, than in their homeland? Does it not occur to you that these Iranian-Americans are accepted as equals, with all the same opportunities as any other American citizen? How many Americans have chosen to leave their homeland to embrace your “God-fearing, truth loving and justice seeking” way of life?

You attempt to solicit our pity and compassion for the plight of the Palestinians, those poor, oppressed victims of the evil Zionists. We do feel compassion for them, and wish that their situation could be different. But we understand where the responsibility lies for their dilemma. Israel has tried to leave them in peace, but they refuse to accept the offer. I am not here to debate the irrefutable facts of the Holocaust or the reasons behind the establishment of the Israeli state – rather to move forward given the realities of the world as it exists today. Israel exists, and, as long as these United States stand, it will continue to be a free and sovereign nation. The Israeli people, like the American people, want only to live in freedom and peace. They do not seek to infringe on their neighbors or to impose their will on anyone. If the Palestinians would invest the vast amounts of energy and ingenuity they expend trying to kill Jews into building a nation, they could have a prosperous and flourishing country. Their situation is the direct result of the choices they make, and their situation will improve when their choices become self-serving instead of combative and destructive.

So it goes with the rest of the Middle East. We liberated the Iraqis from their horrible dictator. Certainly we made some mistakes along the way. Our primary and most grievous mistake was our assumption that people instinctively embrace freedom. People who have never experienced freedom have no incentive to embrace it. People who have been told how to behave and how to believe every day of their lives, and their parents’ lives, have no concept of free choice. People who have never experienced the joy of succeeding on their own merits, of seeing their dreams come to fruition, have no measure of true happiness. We did not take decisive control of the newly liberated country, and we left the door open a crack for opportunists such as yourself. This was our error, and this is what we now must correct.

I said before that our government does not have the luxury of being able to lie to us. That applies even more wholly to you. You do not practice what you preach, sir. We know the horrors your people have to live with. We know about your torture policies. We know how completely you must suppress your people to prevent uprisings which will overthrow your government. We know about the unemployment, the drug use and the prostitution that is rampant in your society. We know that you routinely execute homosexuals simply because they are homosexual. We know that you spend hundreds of millions of dollars supporting Hizb’Allah, Hamas and the Mahdi Army in Iraq. We know that millions of your citizens wait, and watch, and pray to the God of their understanding to rescue them from the atrocities that their leaders impose upon them. We know that anyone who dares to suggest that there is a better way of life than that which they have is imprisoned, abused or killed. We see through the fantasy that you are trying to present to the world, and we do not accept it.

You have offered us the opportunity to repent. We offer the same to you. We believe, with every fiber of our beings, that ours is a superior system. We believe this not because of material things, though our freedoms have enabled us to amass many. We believe this because we have lived it, for generations, and know the elation of freedom. We know that our country is not just our own – it is the pinnacle to which millions of people around the world aspire. We built a Nation from nothing but heart, and we will defend it until our last breath.

Know, Mr. Ahmadinejad, that we will never submit. We may be slow to anger, but our wrath is fierce and terrible once it is aroused. We do not seek confrontation, but we will not run from it. This land is not about money, or buildings, or weapons, or power. This land is about People, without whom it would be only a collection of rock and brick and steel. It is Americans that make us great, whatever their heritage and beliefs. If you can understand that, you will have mastered the greatest gift of all.

April Clark

A Noble American

November 29, 2006