Mathoms, etc.

Courtesy of Lynn, 5 years ago.

Thank you, President Bush
By Paulo Coelho

Thank you, great leader George W. Bush.

Thank you for showing everyone what a danger Saddam
Hussein represents.
Many of us might otherwise have forgotten that he used

chemical weapons
against his own people, against the Kurds and against
the Iranians. Hussein
is a bloodthirsty dictator and one of the clearest
expressions of evil in
today's world.

But this is not my only reason for thanking you.
During the first two
months of 2003, you have shown the world a great many
other
important things and, therefore, deserve my gratitude.

So, I want to say thank you.

Thank you for showing everyone that the Turkish people

and their parliament
are not for sale, not even for 26 billion dollars.
Thank you for revealing to the world the gulf that
exists between the
decisions made by those in power and the wishes of the

people.

Thank you for making it clear that neither Jose Maria
Aznar nor Tony Blair
give the slightest weight to or show the slightest
respect for the votes
they received. Aznar is perfectly capable of ignoring
the fact that 90
percent of Spaniards are against the war, and Blair is

unmoved by the
largest public demonstration to take place in England
in the last 30 years.

Thank you for making it necessary for Blair to go to
the British parliament
with a fabricated dossier written by a student 10
years ago, and
present this as "damning evidence collected by the
British Secret Service."

Thank you for allowing Colin Powell to make a complete

fool of himself by
showing the UN Security Council photos which, one week

later,
were publicly challenged by Hans Blix, the inspector
responsible for
disarming Iraq.

Thank you for adopting your current position and thus
ensuring that, at the
plenary session, French Foreign Minister Dominique de
Villepin's antiwar speech was greeted with applause -
something, as far as
I know, that has only happened once before in the
history
of the UN, after a speech by Nelson Mandela.

Thank you too, because, after all your efforts to
promote war, the normally
divided Arab nations, at ther meeting in Cairo during
the
last week in February, were, for the first time,
unanimous in their
condemnation of any invasion.

Thank you for your rhetoric stating that "the UN now
has a chance to
demonstrate its relevance," a statement which made
even the
most reluctant countries take up a position opposing
any attack on Iraq.

Thank you for your foreign policy which provoked
British Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw into declaring that in the 21st century, "a
war can have a moral justification," thus causing him
to lose all
credibility.

Thank you for trying to divide a Europe that is
currently struggling for
unification; this was a warning that will not go
unheeded.
Thank you for having achieved something that very few
have so far managed
to do in this century: bringing together millions of
people
on all continents to fight for the same idea, even
though that idea is
opposed to yours.

Thank you for making us feel once more that though our

words may not be
heard, they are at least spoken - this will make us
stronger in
the future.

Thank you for ignoring us, for marginalizing all those

who oppose your
decision, because the future of the planet belongs to
the
excluded. Thank you, because, without you, we would
not have realized our
own ability to mobilize. It may serve no purpose this
time,
but it will doubtless be useful later on.

Now that there seems no way of silencing the drums of
war, I would like to
say, as an ancient European king said to an invader:
"May
your morning be a beautiful one, may the sun shine on
your soldiers' armor,
for in the afternoon, I will defeat you."

Thank you for allowing us - an army of anonymous
people filling the streets
in an attempt to stop a process that is already
underway - to know what it feels like to be powerless
and to learn to
grapple with that feeling and transform it.

So, enjoy your morning and whatever glory it may yet
bring you.

Thank you for not listening to us and not taking us
seriously, but know
that we are listening to you and that we will not
forget
your words.

Thank you, great leader George W. Bush.

Thank you very much.

The author is a Brazilian writer. This article
was originally published in Portuguese on the
Open Democracy Web site, at
www.opendemocracy.net



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