- There's a sing-song poem that asks; what are little boys
made of? Snips and snails and puppy dog tails--that's what little boys
are made of. There's a part of me, forever shattered, that shall never
be whole again looking upon the inhumanities-the savagery-the butchery-the
slaughter of the children and youth these past few weeks of drummed infotainment
war. The newest bid for ratings, as one TV commentator remarked, "This
war has been a shot in the arm". Ratings-polls-animated Disney-like
scenes of troop and tank manuvers. Every station has its stable of 'public
relations' hirelings called "experts" in the art of war. Yes
war, now elevated as today's new militarized surreal landscape,of, not
melting clocks but incinerated people---hulking blackened tanks--vans and
automobiles. Vehiles that all once held families-soldiers-hopes and dreams.
Life. Maybe not important to many but it was to them.
Lights, camera, action; live footage shows the military kicking down an
isolated farm house door ordering the terrified peasant family, the elderly
grandparents, little children and parents to kneel in the dirt their hands
behind their backs. I feel sick and ashamed that the power-might-and untold
blessings of my country, are being utilized in the subjugation, humiliation
and terror towards people we've announced such altruistic concern for.
Operation Iraq Freedom resembles Operation Bloodlust-Might Makes Right.
War. The Big One--The War to End all Wars--Conflicts--Interventions. All
with the usual superlative reasonings to instill moral indignation and
national fervor. Stop Communism--Genocide--Freedom--Evil Incarnate. Today
its regime change-pre-emptive strikes before a country develops possible
nuclear capabilities and oh, yes, to free the people to happily ever after
democracy. Will we someday hear the echo of a Defense Secretary Robert
McNamara of the Vietnam era, decades later; "It was all a mistake".
Small consolation to the 58,000 names on a weeping wall and millions of
Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians.
The spoils of war; the contracts awarded--the monies realized by those
building not hospitals, schools, bridges, roads or housing but cluster
bombs, vaporizing incendiary bombs, missiles, tanks, guns, bunker busters,
micro-wave weapons, surveillance satellites, retina scans, body scanners,
helicopters, drones and planes of every description. War shatters ones
illusions of the human race and the ingenious methods they can create for
the sole purpose of annihilating one another.
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- War today has killing from a distance. It is, 'at first'
hard for a man to look into another man's eyes his same age and kill him.
But war by video solves this hesitation. Our space explorations touted
as serving mankind now thanks to global positioning can guide missiles
ever so more accurately. These shipboard video-arcades are not splattered
with the fragmented bone of a laughing little girl in her favorite purple
sweater. No trauma need be suffered seeing this footless dead child being
lifted from a demolished house where that morning she hurriedly put on
her small jacket to run out and skip in the sun with her playmates. No
Amber Alert here to warn of impending danger, won't somebody take note.
Get the license plate of the bomber.
War intoxicates. It maddens and instills a primal fear. General McCaffrey
one of the bleary eyed war hawks recycled from Gulf War I, and now hired
on by a public relations firm, was perturbed on one program that the troops
didn't have more of a killer instinct they'd have to toughen up. General
McCaffrey should know, true 'expert' that he is in the incinerating of
rag tag peasants exiting Kuwait after the war was called to a halt. Four
hours of cluster bombs--Daisy Cutters saw a highway littered with incinerated
grotesque corpses the perfume, baby formula, and diapers (their spoils)
mere ashes. This,the highway of death...too awful to be shown on American
TV. An official from CNN interviewed on Democracy Now stated that such
scenes of carnage and civilians dead or dying are "pornographic".
Meanwhile Congress busy with details made sure that menus in their dining
hall filled with the aroma of baked ham-turkey-roast beef- salad bars,
side dishes of numerous choices and a chocolate dripping snake bar, saw
to it that menus were promptly changed to identify the new Freedom Toast
and Freedom Fries. Such is the lunacy that war creates. I feel secure and
represented.
The masses of people have been cunningly and cleverly pitted against one
another in their own domestic slice of war. Obediently and compliantly
people chose their teams, or just sat indolently uninvolved, incapable
of a thought process which would have them burdened with anymore than remembering
to pick up that six-pack and bucket of buffalo wings to slop down, clicking
the channels in vacant mindless ever seeking, ever searching escapism.
Wrestling or baseball? The choice is too tough. Meanwhile Sally Sitcom
is having dry heaves and night sweats that her soaps have been interrupted
by something going on somewhere else with a whole bunch of people shooting
and bombing.
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- The Pentagon National News with its in-bed reporters
brings the sterile 'news' of victory-heroics-rescues-memorial services-denials
of "Henny Penny" over reporters reactions to a bit of looting
by an oppressed people anxious to be about their new found liberating shop
till you drop days. With no more risk of having one's hand chopped off
for the act of stealing the mantra is, as hospitals, homes, businesses
, libraries and museums are looted; "Hands don't fail me now".
Thankfully someone had the foresight to surround the Ministry of the Interior
and the Ministry of Oil with tanks and troops. Records invaluable to the
running of an oil empire protected from harm. No water, no food, no electricity,
thousands of civilians killed or maimed, cities burning but glub, glub,
glub OUR OIL is safe for this up-coming summer's yachting-escape from stress
trips and excursions to Disney Land. Thank God we won.
The lap-dog media has not failed to keep the inflammatory language going
of those die-hards not into war and gore labeled as; "treasonous--anti-American--Saddam
loving scum---love it or leave it." Nothing too complicated, as today's
attention span is programmed to a 30-60 second commercial span. Saddam,
the Frankenstein that America built and lavished over the years with money-loans-military
equipment-chemicals etc., is, as are all of his ilk, a sub-human mutation
of the human species. To imply that those crying for sanity and peace would
endorse the actions of a killer and sadist goes to show you how low the
bar has been lowered in intelligence and critical sane reasoning in this
nation. Most have no idea of the culture-the tribes-the various factions-the
great artistry-poetry, music and gifts of the Iraqi people. To Americans,
purposed and deliberate, they are portrayed as a mass of withering-towel
headed-shroud dressed women, generations behind in development. With all
of our technological know-how and various documentaries, very rarely has
the Iraqi people in their universities, their lifestyles their creativity
ever been shown. The enemy must always be demeaned and seen as other-not
like us. When scenes are shown, its the subservient Iraqi waving-rushing
for the rice being thrown out of the back of a truck or children grinning
with the stick of gum they've been handed. A defeated-humiliated people.
Nobody disputes the horrors of a Saddam and many others like him. The answer
to such depravity and terror is not to visit a "Shock and Awe"
blitz of incomprehensible terror night after night, all the while dropping
leaflets of our concern and that we've come to save. It's like the dropping
of cluster bombs and food packets in Afghanistan (in chaos by the way)
in the same yellow cannisters. Children thinking the unexploded ordinance
were food soon learned that these bomblets shred vegetation and children
much like the back room of your local butcher shop.
Kosovo. Out of sight out of mind. Americans have Alzheimer disease when
it comes to remembering the suffering of others. I still can see the little
blond haired boy of about ten kneeling in the dirt of a country lane. His
face contorted with anguish and incomprehension, the shredded bodies of
his family nearby in an overturned farm wagon seeking escape. A ragged
doll, perhaps his sisters lay face down arms outstretched. The pilot at
30,000 feet missed this scene. Who can forget the napalm burned child
of Vietnam, another ingenious use of man's creativity. Iraq, the little
toddler in her red and orange dress, killed with her family while trying
to run somewhere anywhere. An old man at the scene said, "We run but
we don't know where to--it keeps us from feeling powerless". The cluster
bomb that hit the market place. Too "pornographic" was the single
mutilated dismembered hand on a door. My God. Saddam? His family? His
thousands of henchmen? Apparently, per usual with evil, safe and sound--whisked
off to guarded opulent retirement somewhere leaving his people to die.
But then psychopaths have no conscience---he and his are safe and that's
all that matters. Most can't conceive of evil of such magnitude. With all
the trumpeting of searching out evil from every corner and cranny of the
earth; Bin-Laden, his thugs; Saddam and his fellow killers are still on
the loose with no mention of our safety or security with their continued
existence! Now Syria? What about Evil? Terrorism still lurking? Warring
against terrorism is like warring against lust or the fog, a forever unwinnable
ridiculous concept.
For those who champion and cry war, for those who froth from their grease
stained armchairs to "nuke'em all---turn the place to glass"
think of the young men and women not coming home. A father who had twins
born while he was overseas....never to know them. He's dead. Saddam lives.
What of the mother with two children. She's dead. Saddam lives. What of
the fathers in Maryland and Texas with their only sons gone? They're dead.
Saddam lives. What insanity of depraved indifference puts mothers in war?
What malignant disregard to the possible horrors a young woman might be
subject to, puts a nineteen year old girl in the middle of war? A young
kid from West Virginia where the unemployment rate in her small butcher
holler town is 15%. She joined, like most impoverished kids to get an education.
She wanted to be a teacher. We will have her made for TV story not questioning
why our poor and minorities are having to make such choices. Another glory
tale of war. No corporate elites sons or daughters are over there being
poisoned with depleted uranium (used in our weapons) nor are there (minus
one) any politicians sons or daughters, for all their patriotic fervor
of defeating terrorism. Seems to me that freedom fighting is only assigned
to young, impressionable, naive, mostly impoverished youth. For all the
accusations of not supporting the troops, if one is not for vaporizing
war, I have yet to see a demonstration over the recent cutting of approximately
19 billion plus in veterans benefits. I've yet to see in all the war stories
families on food stamps or picking up food packages at local churches because
of the pay being lower than one would make working at McDonalds. But then
this might be deemed "too pornographic"; something us dumb asses
out here are too stupid, too infantile and brain dead to grasp. We might
even start to ask if this war business is not making a few people mighty
darn rich on the backs of poor folks kids. Can't have any awakening. Shhhh!
What are little boys made of? How can any person on the face of the earth
who still retains some semblance of heart or conscience look at little
Ali with his arms blown off, terribly burned and cry war? How? Ali, is
everybody's little boy. A month ago he was running and playing on his family's
farm outside Baghdad never giving it a thought that American would come
to "liberate" him and his family while they slept with cluster
bombs! No, Ali won't be on one of the many made for TV scenes, running
to catch a chocolate bar from a kind soldier. He won't be running and waving
thank-you America. With his family dead there is no mommy to tell him that
America cares about him; that his arms being blown off and his little body
charred was a miscalculation and he announced as mere "collateral
damage". Who will tell Ali that a "precision-surgical strike"
did just that and shredded his arms? Ali's picture should be plastered
all over this nation, "pornographic" or not! Ali's picture needs
to be sent to all the media over and over. It needs to be sent to our Congressmen/women
who gave over their responsibility to the Executive Branch in declaring
war when we voted that decision on them.
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- We need to take Ali's pictures into our churches--those
who espouse that God is for us--our God of War has given us victory--look
how good our God is. Yes, and remind them that Jesus said when asked, "
Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? He called a little child
and had him stand among them and He said," I tell you the truth, unless
you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom
of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child
like this in my name welcomes .....see that you do not look down on one
of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always
see the face of my Father in heaven." Matthew 18: 3-10
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- God help the nation that glorifies and celebrates the
barbarism of war that shreds and vaporizes these little ones and hypocritically
sees its own children as sacred icons; with its numerous laws and regulations
from car seats, to helmets, to safe playgrounds to rights of the child
etc. Ali was somebody's pride and joy. He wanted to be a doctor. He wonders
if someone can give him arms. My God what has become of us when as fellow
human beings we can't overcome our stupidity, our politics, our bias and
prejudice and be the protectors, the nurturers and teachers of our young,
the world's young, in compassion, understanding and tolerance? If our leaders
are incapable of such humanity it falls upon us the peacemakers to stop
this indiscriminate forever killing and diabolical expenditure of bigger
and more bombastic ways to kill. "The duties of the individual towards
himself are, in reality-duties towards society." Emile Duncein. What
we wish for our own we should wish no less for others.
"There are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by
keeping up the quarrels of nations, is as Shocking as it is true; but when
those who are concerned in the government of a country, make it their study
to sow discord, and cultivate prejudices between nations, it becomes unpardonable."
Thomas Paine
It will be of small consolation to little Ali that millions upon millions
throughout the world marched, wrote letters, poems, and articles to prevent
war. It will in no way alleviate the impossible pain he must be suffering,
to have him know we implored our government officials, in all countries,
to not suffer this cruelty against an innocent people. How can this little
boy comprehend that mad men intent on war-power-conquest and spoils, have
little to no concern over a little boy in a far off land, who will never
again hug his mommy--clap for joy or be the healing physician that he dreamed
of. It is simply a time that we grieve for those with no-one to lament
their passing and no-one to report the magnitude of what war does to a
people. Wars have long echoes heard long after the laughter-back slapping
and toasting to victory. A lie. Everyone loses in war and in this particular
war we most of all....we once the beacon of safety for the tired-hungry
and burdened now the greatest military machine in the world. We whose grandparents
arrived here from various oppressors have now become burdened down with
grief for suffering humanity at our hands.
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