Melville House Books

Russell Banks

While many supporters of Barack Obama (well, okay, me) find themselves abruptly brokenhearted, thoroughly disenchanted, and more than a little pissed off to discover that the phrase “change we can believe in” actually means “the Clinton administration we voted against,” others in the literary community are ignoring the fact of another apparently meaningless vote to instead beseech the President-elect to reconsider a campaign pledge it seems he may actually live up to: escalating the war in Afghanistan. A group of writers including Russell Banks, Chris Hedges, Francine Prose, Robert Haas, and Mark Kurlansky have drafted a letter they hope to place as an ad in The New York Review of Books and The Nation (aka, the choir) asking Obama to withdraw from Afghanistan. Asked to sign on, yours truly has declined but I can at least pass along both the organizers’ plea for cash assistance (”You can write your check to Summit Study and mail it to: Summit Study / 262 Moore St. / Princeton, NJ 08540″) as well as the letter itself, in full:

Francine Prose

“Dear President-elect Obama,

We congratulate you and wish you the very best of fortune in your great undertaking. As writers, we admire your eloquence and your engagement with ideas. But we are worried because a new beginning will not be possible as long as we continue to spill
the blood of the men, women, and children of Afghanistan. The Taliban is not a threat to the United States nor are the people of Afghanistan. There is no victory for those who attempt to occupy Afghanistan, as the Soviets and the British discovered. There will be no progress at home while such an all-consuming war is
being waged. If we stay, the situation will get worse, not better, and the toll in American lives and American prestige, as well as the damage to our standing in the Middle East and to the American budget will be staggering and tragic. Wartime presidents accomplish little else. We urge you to negotiate with the Taliban, withdraw all troops from Afghanistan, and begin the moral and physical rebuilding of Afghanistan, as well as that of the United States.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.