Prescient

Joel Bleifuss

During the first Gulf War, David Rubenstein wrote in the February 27, 1991 issue of In These Times: Anyone who has talked to religious Muslims from the region must be concerned that no matter how decisively George Bush can knock out Iraq, in fact he has started a bloody conflict with a much larger and more diffuse opponent, a conflict that will not be resolved for many years, perhaps decades or longer … think of it as an entitlement program: Every kid born in America gets a share of a trillion-dollar debt and a free ticket to a holy war.

Joel Bleifuss, a former director of the Peace Studies Program at the University of Missouri-Columbia, is the editor & publisher of In These Times, where he has worked since October 1986.

The text is from the poem “QUADRENNIAL” by Golden, reprinted with permission. It was first published in the Poetry Project. Inside front cover photo by Golden.
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