ars et saliva
david p. eiser
zeitraffer
Open Letter to the President of the United States of America
March 2017
Dear Mr. President,
as the president of the US you are in a position that may allow you to make the world go
round. That´s why I try to propose you an idea. - I start from the conception that you take
an interest in living in a world of peace, safety and positiveness. And I know that you are
a business man. So you might try to do something primarily looking irrational but coming
out as a turnabout.
We know: Everyone is venal. It only depends on the price. And you know how to deal with
such an issue. So why not offer the terrorists a reward for leaving their present life and
getting reintegrated into our world?
We´ve learned that they are being caught by the promise to sit by the right side of Allah.
After their death, and that they´ll have 70 virgins to serve them. But how about offering
them one million dollar per person down here and now for forgetting the after death
expectation? Why not grant them a chance to live here on earth, getting education and
finding a job to live from and being a useful citizen?
And I want to tell you why this is my favorite imagination:
Fighting against the terrorists is lasting on since more than 15 years. Meanwhile there
have come up three big hills down in the valley. Under the first one you`ll find the bodies
of thousands of brave soldiers and policemen. Under the second there are thousands of
bodies of “illegal” fighters oozing away. Under the third one you`ll find all of the bodies of
children, the women, the old ones, the citizens who´ve had bad luck and became the col-
lateral damage of this permanent warfare. Those count thousands, too. And what is it that
forms the valley? It´s the mountains of debris carried together, thousands of former hou-
ses including their contents. It´s streets, vehicles, plants and millions of destroyed little
things which have served as toys, helpful tools, memories…
In addition to the lost human lives try to calculate how much dollars have gone this way,
too. It´s billions. And what is the result? Has our world become safer, better, more valu-
able? Is there less hate? After more than 15 years it doesn´t look like getting ahead suc-
cessfully this way.
You are a business man. So you know how to treat with wins and losses. Just let your
specialists add the costs of this 15 year old struggle against Al Qaeda, IS, Boko Haram…
and so on. Let them divide it by 15, and youl´ll know how much it is per year. Then try to
find out how many terrorists per year can be “bought” with one million dollar. If there are
1000 terrorists, it´s only one billion dollars, and I´m sure we all together compensate for
this with a lot more than one billion per year into this pot of war. That´s the costs.
The win is: No deads in the future. No tears, no cries. No refugees. No billion dollar aid-
pro-grams to keep them from starving of hunger and misery. Instead of fright and danger
there will come up hope and confidence for generations…
I´m sorry, I just hear the grumbling voices out of the foggy depths of the military-industrial
compounds: “You make us feel given up. Who will pay our salaries if the world starts go-
ing unarmed?” Well, it´s a question of good will. On principle no matter what way is chosen:
If the profit of an organization is guaranteed it´s independent of what is being produced.
So make the companies look out for different things to improve our welfare. Things that
are useful for all of us and not only for those who wanna kill and destroy. (Google, Ama-
zon, Facebook… have been doing that for a long time and they have not died away yet.)
If you turn out to be the initiator of such a positive development to life and farewell to
death I´m sure you will be one of the greatest American presidents.
Turn the economy of death into an economy of life.
david p. eiser