Saadi Youssef, "America, America"

Two lines from "America, America," a poem written by Iraqi poet Saadi Youssef in Damascus on August 20, 1995, prophesied George W. Bush's plan of bringing "maximum security" to Iraq: "Take your blueprints for model penitentiaries / and give us village homes" (trans. Khaled Mattawa, Banipal 7, Spring 2000, republished in Masthead 7, February 2003).