dotlit: 'One Cowboy Can't Control the World'
by Magie Dominic

In my lifetime there has been no peace, but there was always a constant
unextinguished glimmer of hope. Hope for the possibility of world peace.
Maybe we were naive to believe if we marched enough miles, in enough
countries, if we sang enough peace songs, lit enough candles and prayed
enough prayers that the wars might stop. That governments would cease
destroying one another. Maybe we were naive to believe that there was a
possibility of peace, maybe not in our future, but for our childrens'
future. This is why we did it. This is why we marched and prayed. This was
the driving force behind the songs and candles.

But the world as we once knew it has now dramatically and tragically
changed.

We can never return to the past with its faults, with its clumsiness and
possibilities and to whatever potential that past may have offered. To
whatever possibilities for peace that may have existed. Whether we agreed
on the faults of this world, whether we have collectively agreed on its
inadequacies and unfairness, its questionable past and the possibilities
for its future, with the belligerent US attack on the country of Iraq and
on its people — a war without UN approval, a war despite the open
objections of the UN, despite the objections of the Vatican, despite the
objections of the Pope himself, despite the objections of the majority of
the western world, despite the objections of middle eastern countries, the
objections of third world countries and second world countries, despite
the objections of millions, possibly billions of world citizens — the US
has unilaterally, tragically and irrevocably changed the face of the world
forever. We can never go back now. We are trapped in the vision of a
policy that is destined for failure.

Our future has been changed and with it the future of the world. George
Bush and his US cowboy style policy makers who have promised to bomb the
bejesus out of Iraq have single-handedly changed our world forever. And
not for the better. That future will not be one paved with world peace.
With security for everyone. For anyone. It will not be a future filled
with kindness.

The rage of the world has been ignited. How could it be otherwise?

Our future has now been written in the flames of bombs bursting over the
bodies of innocent helpless children. Children who have been burned and
mutilated by the last war. Who have suffered malnutrition, and starvation
and cancer, and death, whose water was poisoned with raw sewerage after
water purification systems were bombed. Our future is being written on
cruise missiles falling on the fragile bodies of innocent and helpless
mothers and fathers, on the elderly, and handicapped. Bombs don't
discriminate. Once they are in motion they can't be recalled.

The rage of the world has been ignited and that rage will manifest itself
in ways that are uncontrollable, that are not neat and organized. The rage
of the world will be chaotic, unexpected and unpredictable. The rage
unleashed by the actions of a few men in Washington this week, in the name
of peace and freedom and liberation; on behalf of those who want peace —
in otherworlds you and me — that unleashed world rage is the child of US
policy, a bastard child created by the union of greed, domination and
ignorance. A birth created by a few men who have no vision for the future
other than a vision for power. That unfortunate irrevocable unleashed rage
will be unmatched. And how could it be otherwise? The world has said no.
Has pleaded no. To expect peace now is to live in a world of denial.

One man may be able to successfully control a country. But one man cannot
control the world. What a childish, dysfunctional dangerous thought. What
a brazen misuse of public office. What a criminal waste and abuse of
public money. Money robbed from its own schools and hospitals.
Annihilation and death has become the new phrase for freedom. The new
words for freedom. Annihilation and death. Remember them well. It will be
used often in our name, in our new future.