This piece was written in response to Sam Hamill's call for poems and personal statements reflecting opposition to the second US-Iraq war. The rapid and overwhelming response necessitated the creation of a website called PoetsAgainstTheWar.org . "Letter to the New America" can also be found on that site.
 
27 January, 2003

Good Afternoon,

I'm writing today in a foul, black mood. My country wants to go to war, and at this point I see very little hope that it can be avoided. Colin Powell's comments in Davos yesterday have extinguished any
hope I had that the Bush Administration might be dissuaded from seeking a military solution in Iraq. Whether he personally supports an invasion or not, Powell clearly believes that his duty is to follow his President's lead. Though I hate saying it, it seems very likely that Bush will announce the beginning of military strikes in his speech tomorrow.

Most of my friends and neighbors here in Madrid have been telling me for months that this thing was inevitable. Nobody has any illusions about Bush's motives, either. Mention the "War on terrorism" or "freeing the Iraqis from the tyrannical rule of Saddam Hussein" and people will laugh in your face. This is the country where General Franco lived a long, happy life as a fascist dictator, while the rest of the Western World turned a blind eye. People here tend to be little suspicious when they're told about the war between "good" and "evil".

No, we know what this is about, and we have from the start. It's about controlling the oil supply. The world is using up its oil reserves at a staggering rate, and someday there just ain't gonna be any left. In the meantime, though, Bush and his masters in the oil industry see Saddam Hussein sitting on the second-largest oilfield in the world, and think, "that boy's got to go". Oil is the largest industry in the world, bar none. Why wouldn't we fight a war for it? We've fought wars over bananas, for God's sake.

So, what do we do with this? It's going to happen, despite the protests, despite the marches and petitions. Despite the objections of nearly everybody in the international community. Bombs and guns against the very real flesh of Iraqi citizens who will be placed as a shield between the Americans and Saddam Hussein. Dead children, again. The tortured and the maimed, again. The whole thing packaged as 'Reality TV' with all the nasty bits edited out.

So what do we do? For myself, I feel that the worst possible action is to quietly accept this obscenity. I want it known that I do not go along with this insane policy, and I will not support George Bush in his criminal actions. So I am going to continue to write letters, to sign petitions, to go to marches, and to loudly and publicly proclaim my opposition to this war. We may not be able to stop it, but we sure as hell don't have to endorse it.

What you do is a matter of personal choice, but I encourage anyone who has not yet taken a stand against this war to do so loudly and unswervingly. Make it known that the President does not represent your interests in this matter.

Do not let the bastards claim that they are doing this in our name.

Best regards,

Newton

p.s. I still love you, but God are you pushing it.