Al Martinez, a beloved writer for the Los Angeles Times for many years, posted this letter to the president just prior to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003:

Style & Culture; Al Martinez; With a finger on the trigger; Al Martinez. Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, Calif.: Feb 14, 2003.

To George W. Bush, President of the United States

Mr. President:

Today is Friday but I’m writing you on Wednesday, so all of this could be coming too late. The smart bombs may already have hit their marks in Iraq, along with the bunker busters, city killers and that fire from hell called napalm. But if it isn’t too late, then I ask you, for myself and millions of others, to wait another day.

A day isn’t much in the vast stretch of time, but it’s often the difference between serenity and calamity, a tick of the cosmic clock that divides well-being from horror. Another day of rethinking options, of talking, of trying to find a better way isn’t too much to ask of a man who holds the fate of the world in his hands.

War sounds easy for someone who hasn’t been in one, but down on the level where people get hurt, it’s very personal. Although all the patriotic bluster and jingoistic flag-waving may grant you the spotlight you desire, when the enemy hits back, we won’t be able to hear the ringing words for the dying screams.

Peace advocates all over the world are trying to tell you that they don’t want war and they don’t see why one is necessary. With the possible exception of what might emerge at the U.N. today, the inspectors have come up with little to justify a full-scale attack, but you’re still shaking your fist in the face of the world, damning anyone who disagrees.

You talk of going it alone, without the U.N. or NATO, maybe just us and jolly old England, defying words of caution coming from France, Germany, Russia and even Belgium. Those are countries that have known war, Mr. President. Bombs have fallen on their cities and millions have died. I have an uneasy feeling that this time America will know war on its civilians, and the bloodshed will be great.

Fear clouds the nation with a darkness rarely experienced. We never expected that the realities of military conflict, the bombs and the flames, would reach us during other wars. We felt safely distant from the fires of combat. But this time it’s different. They’ve reached us already, and you tell us more horror is surely in our future.

I’ve heard whispers of fear in conversations throughout L.A. for the past several weeks, and I’ve seen expressions of fear on faces that have never known terror before. I interrupted a group’s conversation at a deli in the Valley to ask what frightened them most, and one of them said it all when he said, “Tomorrow.”

I overheard a similar conversation at an exclusive four-star Westside restaurant. Two women were talking about the havoc rain causes on the freeways, when one of them suddenly wondered aloud how it would be to evacuate if war came. The question lingered in silence, unanswered.

It was the same at the MOCA opening for the Lucian Freud show, among parents picking up their kids at a Topanga school, at a peace protest in Santa Monica, at a gathering of friends in Woodland Hills, at a church in Canoga Park. We too wondered “what if” and dared not ponder further.

We’re afraid, Mr. President. Not just for us, but for everyone and everything we love. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the people in Baghdad feel that way too. Civilians aren’t the ones who declare war. War is begun by kings who threaten and posture and who, seeking history’s laurels, lack the vision to foresee where ego gratification can lead.

Your attorney general tells us to go about life as usual. Go to concerts, go to hotels, get on planes, board trains, go to school. But then he warns us that attacks by Al Qaeda terrorists could be imminent, especially if we bomb Iraq. Lights of danger flash to high alert. We’re told to keep three days’ supply of food and water in our homes, to place emergency kits in the backpacks of our kids and to think about where we might go if the cities, for one reason or another, become uninhabitable. Life as usual just isn’t possible, Mr. President.

No one wants another Hitler to imperil the world, but you haven’t convinced us that Saddam Hussein is even capable of becoming one. That will take more proof, more inspections, more convincing and more attention to the will of the people.

Listen to us, Mr. President. We don’t want anyone killed in any country of the world to sate the appetite of kings. Give it time, Mr. President. For the sake of us all, the millions you hold in trust, don’t pull the trigger. Wait another day.

Yours in desperation,

A Human Being

Think about it!