OPINION: An appeal to senators to help stop endless war

At a time when more and more ordinary people feel increasingly hopeless, faced with a seemingly divided, intransigent, uncaring government, I appeal to Sens. Tester and Daines, as the highest elected officials from Montana, to search their souls and explain to me how is it possible we have come to this?

This is not a personal indictment. Sen. Tester, I know you, personally, to be an honest and direct person. Sen. Daines, I do not know you personally, but give you the benefit of the doubt that you, too, are an honorable man. I suspect many of our elected officials are, individually, honorable men and women.

Collectively, however, you appear incapable of doing the right thing in the vast majority of cases. In this particular instance, I am referring to the astounding abomination of endless war that the Congress, collectively, allows to continue in our name, and not incidentally, at our extreme expense, in treasure, lives, and ethical and moral standing.

I just finished reading James Risen’s 2014 book, “Pay Any Price.” Have you read it? Every word of it? If so, it is unfathomable to me how you could go about your daily lives ignoring the truth of the revelations he sets free. Do you dismiss the reporting of a Pulitzer Prize-winning member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences? Is it not alarming to you that Risen has been relentlessly pursued by both the Bush and Obama administrations as part of a six-year leak investigation into his previous book, “State of War.”

Does it not set off deafening alarm bells that our government is more concerned with silencing critics and covering their tracks than they are with transparency and truth?

Gentlemen, please don’t trot out the response of “national security” or “terrorist threats.” Read the book, if you haven’t, and see the lie put to that false argument. I cannot believe you have succumbed to the trumped up fear, generated by the military and the defense industry, that argues we must give up our liberty, lives, and treasure to fight this fantastical terrorist threat.

In fact, the argument can, and has been, made, that all the money, troops, drones, NSA spying, etc., we have thrown at the “problem” has only made things worse. What if we had spent a mere fraction of the billions we wasted on war, instead investing in solving the problems of the world — poverty, starvation, disease, climate change? The terrorists would not have a leg to stand on. Recruitment, instead of burgeoning, would dry up completely.

There’s only one explanation as to why the government, in the face of the overwhelming evidence that it is not working, keeps on the current disastrous course: greed and power among politicians, corporations, and career military planners.  Self preservation and enrichment to the extreme degree.

Ordinary folks more and more understand this obvious truth. Hence the government’s extreme measures to suppress it. Whistleblowers like Risen and Snowden, pursued and persecuted by the government, are considered heroes by we ordinary folk.

 How can we stop it? People like you two must take a stand and say “No!” If not, it will only be a matter of time until we all wind up in the streets to demand you do the right thing. Why not do the right thing now?

I’d be interested to hear your response, not in talking points, but in clear, honest words and thoughts. Please, our future depends on it.

Jordan is a resident of Coram.