To My Future President,
When you’re sworn into office next January, the majority of Americans will wish you were someone else. You won’t be popular — but you will have the power to decide whether our country continues down a road of global exploitation and endless war.
My hope is that you’ll choose a different path.
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My name is Ramon Mejia. I’m from Dallas, Texas. In 2001, I graduated from high school, had a newborn daughter, and, like many young people of color, no way to support my young family.
I ended up in the Marines.
In 2003, I was part of the first Marine Combat Service Support Unit deployed to Iraq. The next 7 months of my life would be spent in a country that we brutally invaded and occupied all under the guise of “national security.”
I was discharged from the military, like thousands of my fellow veterans, I was discharged due to health issues resulting from my service.
You never served in the military, nor have your children. You haven’t seen war from the perspective of a combatant, or as a civilian whose country has been invaded. Yet you will have the authority to send young men and women to fight, commit atrocities, for the sake of corporate entities profiting from U.S. militarism.
Our national security policies must respect the sovereignty of nations to determine their course economically and politically and they must uphold the principle of non-interference and mutual benefit
But our national security has, so far, been self-serving:
We’ve militarized police departments. We’ve normalized mass surveillance. Civil liberties are an afterthought.
All of that plus all of our military endeavors end up costing taxpayers a fortune, a fortune the majority of us, don’t have.
Stop the fear mongering, stop the polarizing debates, stop saying what your base of support wants to hear. Speak sincerely and truthfully about the issues we need to confront as a nation. Don’t speak about military threats to our national security while ignoring the ways our foreign policy has created these crises. Don’t ignore the mothers raising children in refugee camps because of our policy decisions.
In addition, the US government can stop investing our taxpayer dollars in building and maintaining military installations overseas, and instead, choose to invest in education, housing, healthcare, transportation, and reparations. Bring back our industry, help us produce again – stop the dependency on the loan culture.
You never had to worry how your children would pay for college. My 15-year-old daughter is part of a generation likely unable to afford a home or find a stable job because of crippling student debt and rising education costs.
You have the ability to either continue exploiting national security fears for continued occupation of lands abroad, or stop.
I hope you choose to stop.
Ramon Mejia,
Son of a Mexican Immigrant,
Practicing Muslim,
Marine Corps Veteran
Hadi
November 3, 2016 at 6:53 PM
Bravo! Well written and oh so true.I hope your letter falls on deaf ears Remon Mejia.
Wan mohd azwan
November 4, 2016 at 8:01 AM
I am with you Ramon, wishing for this world is just like the heaven
umroh januari
November 5, 2016 at 10:10 AM
i like subhanallah