Iraq-nophobia

originally sent 8/11/05


Dear Mr. President,

I am afraid of spiders. Truly, unreasonably, afraid of them. Clinically, it's called Arachnophobia: an abnormal fear of spiders. One of them, spiders I mean, has built itself quite an impressive web in the window of my back stairs. Every day, I have to pass by this elaborate nest of webbing, dead flies and, of course, the spider. The spider is almost as big as a chipmunk. Well, perhaps reasonably smaller than that; but in my mind -- definitely chipmunk-sized. The good days are when I can talk myself into believing it isn't there so I can bring my groceries up the most convenient way into my apartment. The bad days are the ones where I either take the front stairs or I pass the damn thing as I am coming up the stairs and see it moving just as I reach eye level with it. I am tingling with fear even as I write this.

It's been several months now that the spider has taken up residence within my line of sight. Even though I know it can't hurt me and even though I know it has nothing short of indifference (or at best contempt) for me, today I took a broom and destroyed it's home with the intent of killing it. It leapt at me. I wish I were exaggerating here. Perhaps to make it closer to reality I can say "it leapt in my direction." Either way, it was thrust into the air, in my direction, causing me to panic even more and squash it when it hit the ground and tried to scurry away from me.

Every nerve ending in my body lit on fire with horror. But that was not as frightening as when I realized I didn't have to kill it or touch it at all. It was no threat to me. It was simply my own "abnormal fear" of spiders which made it seem a much larger threat. I acted out of that fear and extinguished a life. A life consisting solely of building a home, procuring food, and sooner or later, dying. Sure, I can hear some people thinking right now "It's only a spider." Sure, I know that. I'm not going to beat myself up too bad about killing it.

Are you thinking the same thing about the Iraqis? There was nothing in Iraq that warranted our attack. The people now are attempting to protect their homes. Have we become that xenophobic? So afraid of what might hurt us that we act out of an abnormal fear? The UN and the world tried to tell us what a reasonable response would be, but we were so maddened by our phobia we didn't listen.

Please, Mr. President, listen now. End the war in Iraq.