Dear America:
It's about midnight here in Oxford, England, and even the solitude of sleep offers little respite. We, the rest of the world, are also caught in the turmoil brought about by Wall Street. You see, what happens in your world affects us all. We also have our Main Streets (and, of course, greed and hubris know no borders and, so, we have our Wall Streets as well). But there is so much more. We speak mostly of what the Bush presidency has wrought -- of wars, and countries broken, of hopes shattered, and lives destroyed.
And, so while biting our nails and with beating hearts, we too await November 4. And hope --with deep fervor -- that you make the right choice. After eight long years of unilateralism and rewriting of international law, we have come to realize more than ever that a world with a reckless superpower is indeed a dangerous and unsafe world.
Whatever happened to the nation that has inspired so many? Where is the superpower that behaved responsibly? Well, not always (does Central America ring a bell? Chile?), but at least you were generally held accountable to public opinion, the rule of law, and to your own Bill of Rights. Then came that fateful day of hanging chads, delayed counts, and a Supreme Court behaving quite unlike the highest court of the land. And shortly thereafter came the invasion of Iraq. We watched in 2004 certain that George W. Bush would be defeated. How could he not be? The war --yes, the war -- had gone horribly wrong, as wars almost always do. But to our dismay, the issues that consumed most of you during the campaign of 2004 -- abortion and gay marriage -- consigned the inconsolable sorrow of a bleeding Iraq to the shadows. The images -- of a father searching the bombed rubble of his home for the remains of his family; a mother weeping over the shattered body of her child; flames scorching across an ancient landscape -- seared our souls. And our hearts wept.
But there is more. You introduced us to extraordinary rendition; the abyss that is Guantanamo; the cruelty of Abu Ghraib; the depravity of torture. Hundreds, if not thousands, languish in unknown prisons, accused but not tried, suspects without evidence, tortured, and denied fundamental rights. Is your Bill of Rights -- a document seen by many a jurist and academic as offering the finest protection of human rights in the world -- just words on paper? You painted the world in simplistic broad-brush terms: black and white, us and them, for us or against us. You decided that we, the world -- the United Nations (UN) and other international bodies -- did not matter. Only to realize we did ,when the war, as many predicted, became a quagmire, and you turned to the UN to help extricate you from a horrific nightmare. Just think how much peace a trillion dollars would have bought? How many schools and hospitals built? How much suffering alleviated?
But we ask also: what about remorse and accountability? Is there to be freedom -- ah, that word so beloved of Americans -- for the unjustly imprisoned? Is there to be justice for the tens of thousands of the dead? Is there ever to be accountability from those who manipulated, deceived, and bear responsibility for this horror? America, what have you wrought? Have you still the moral authority to speak about things that matter?
We know that a war raging in a distant and now broken country has been forgotten by many in America -- according to a CNN poll, a mere 9 percent of Americans rank the war as the most important factor when deciding how to vote; at the top (58 percent) is the economy. We understand -- your livelihood, how to provide for your families -- are important. But do spare a thought for the world outside your borders.
As you turn to the polls on November 4, we ask that you end this isolationism and unilateralism. Are we not a community of nations? Do we not all seek peace and prosperity? We ask also that you fix what you have broken. And regain our faith and our trust, inspire us again, and be that beacon on the hill you claim to be.