I wish I could be more eloquent, now that the war has started. I guess I feel a little deadened, desensitized. It’s like Steven said to me last night when we were chatting online: this war feels like an act of nature. It’s something that they did everything in their power to make happen: Bush, the administration, Saddam Hussein. Everyone did what they could to bring it about. And we in the outside world, the people, the peripheral nations, we struggled against it and raised our cries and complained and called, wrote, protested. But it wouldn’t be stopped; they wouldn’t allow it. They’re all beyond caring about the consequences, more than they’ve ever been. No one knows what the consequences will be, only that there will be consequences. Bush may lose the next election, Hussein may be killed or captured or crippled, the oil will flow, perhaps there will be more terrorism. None of them cares about these consequences now because the war is the thing.

All we can do is watch, if we must watch. I don’t want to be glued to the TV. It’s so hard not to do that all over again. All we can do is to let things unfold; we should continue to protest, speak out, all the while realizing that the people who are playing this game are not paying any attention to us–they’ve erected that fourth wall and we’re not allowed to pass through it or jump over it.

This war is for them, the selfish on both sides, not for us. Let them write their own destinies. In the long run, we have the power to write ours for ourselves.