text: Where's the Change, Barack? - CounterPunch.org
  In the run-up to the 2004 US presidential election, it was said outside the United States that Americans should have the right to vote taken away from them. All those who'd been living under US-backed dictatorships should vote instead.
  The reason was that for decades the World had been gathering actionable intelligence (a fine phrase, Senator, privileged by you) that a US election isn't only a US election. It's a World election. Yet, few Americans voted for a candidate, whether Republican or Democrat, for his ability to parley peacefully with the World. It didn't matter how many sovereign states were invaded, how many non-Americans were killed, or left homeless and stateless, nor how many democratically elected leaders were ousted from their countries by the United States. Americans seemed only concerned with the candidate's promises to them. So the World felt an obligation to offer aid in the shape of preemptively planting a new US president, one who'd respect the rights of others as being equal to the rights of Americans. If the American people protested and were arrested and tortured by World-backed military personnel, well, it was collateral damage, all part of the process of freedom and democracy. Sooner or later, they'd come to understand that their fate was being decided for them for their own good, and they'd be grateful.
  Of course it didn't happen. The World is small compared to the United States. Besides, the non-Americans I know, myself included, don't really wish upon Americans the same fate that's been left to us. We don't want equal tyranny. We want equal worth.
  The 2008 US presidential election is also a World election, which means the opinions of the World also won't matter much. Still, if those like me can't vote in fact, we can at least vote in spirit. I dare to hope (yes, naïvely) that some day my spirit–along with that of millions of others in my humble position–will matter.
  To be the first international US President who'll change the way America is seen in the World, first change the way you see the World. See it as a partner, not a client. As a common ground, not a junkyard. There is actionable intelligence that the World couldn't be more ready for change.
  UZMA ASLAM KHAN a novelist and an essayist. She is the author of The Story of Noble Rot (PenguinIndia 2001) and Trespassing (Flamingo/ HarperCollins UK 2003; Metropolitan/Henry Holt USA 2004) and The Geometry of God (Rupa & Co. India 2008). Trespassing was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Eurasia. She lives in Lahore, Pakistan. Visit her at http://uzmaaslamkhan.blogspot.com