June 11, 2003 - A bus is bombed in Jerusalem and the third rocket attack in two days strikes Gaza. Blood pays the toll in blood on the Bush roadmap to peace. It is an endless trade, a bargain of death for death as the toll mounts day by day. Has it been a full week since George led his parade across the symbolic bridge in the latest Rove production substituting stagecraft for statecraft? From Washington a wave of words – “strongly deplore” – “denounce in the strongest terms” – is the only answer. Yassar Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Usama Bin Laden have all been shuffled to the margins and yet from the margins the strikes continue with lethal blows in Israel, and Arabia; in Afghanistan and Iraq. These are the consequences, still unlearned, of preemptive war and coercive occupation. An unending file of ripped and torn bodies litters the highway along with the shreds of the roadmap.

Just a week ago, a fragile seven days, the American President hailed a new momentum for peace, buoyed by the American “victory” in the Second Iraqi War. Yet that war continues and daily we are reminded of what a difficult road that “victory” has become. American triumph, we were told, opened the pathway to peace in the Middle East. The only ones at peace, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the ancient Holy Land of three faiths, are the dead.

And where is the cowpoke riding herd? On the range singing “Get along little Doughy” with the Sons of the Pioneers or watching the cowboy die on the “Streets of Laredo” with the Riders of the Purple Sage? Well, George is no Gene Autry nor Roy Rogers and God knows he ain’t John Wayne. And this sure isn’t the Saturday afternoon double feature and the herd isn’t headed for Wyoming. With wanted posters for a background George sits in on the high stakes game in which everyone holds Aces and Eights. The Saturday afternoon westerns had better written scripts. We knew the outcome then. This one reads more like “Apocalypse Now” and we also know how that came out.

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose and that is the quality of freedom that our policies have promised. Chaos from the Euphrates to the Jordan has been the only prize won by policies of coercion. The people of the Middle East must be encouraged not merely to become partners for peace but also partners for a shared prosperity. Only by building a shared and equitable economy embracing all of the people of the region can we construct a highway to peace. That highway cannot be built with tanks and bombs. Without a highway upon which to drive a roadmap is useless.