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 naïve to believe if we marched enough miles, in enough countries, if we sang enough peace songs and lit enough candles and prayed enough prayers that the wars might stop. That governments would cease destroying one another. Maybe we were naïve to believe that there was a possibility of peace, maybe not in our future, but for our children’s future. That there might be peace for the children. 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 this weeks belligerent US attack on the country of Iraq and on its people–a war without UN approval, 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 and 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.

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 other worlds 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 very own schools and hospitals. Annihilation and death has become the new phrase for freedom. The new word for freedom. Annihilation and death. Remember it well. It will be used often in our name, in our new future.

Magie Dominic is author of The Queen of Peace Room, a personal exploration of violence in the second half of the twentieth century.

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