From Stone Age Warnings to Jet Age Salesmanship

Gustavo Petro pleaded for peace; Donald Trump turned the UN into an arms bazaar.

While the world tuned in to the United Nations General Assembly this week, the split-screen was almost too on the nose. On one side, Colombian President Gustavo Petro warned that “a kind of stone age has descended on all of humankind,” with missiles raining on unarmed youth in the Caribbean, Gaza in ruins, Ukraine locked in attrition, and humanity sliding backward under the weight of violence. Petro reminded the room that he had pleaded for a peace conference four years ago, only to be ignored by the powers with “bombs or large budgets.” Now, he said, “the horrific situation in Palestine did not lead me to think that almost the same thing could happen in the Colombian Caribbean,” where unarmed young people were killed at sea.

Petro did not spare the United States. “Those who don’t have bombs or large budgets are not heeded here,” he said pointedly, indicting the very structure of global politics that elevates American arms deals over human lives. His speech brimmed with urgency, warning that famine stalks Gaza, peace is treated as a nuisance, and the superpowers prefer the profits of war to the labor of diplomacy. “Missiles against 17 unarmed young people in the Caribbean Sea,” Petro said, summing up a world order that can casually discard the lives of the powerless.

And then there was Donald Trump, flexing for Erdoğan like a salesman on commission.