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Open Wings, Darkened Skies
by Lisa Walsh Thomas
"Well into the war that was supposed to rid Iraq of its alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, a senior British official admitted on Saturday that no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons of mass destruction may after all be found. The confession reconfirms the worst fears of opponents of the war that 'weapons of mass destruction' is only a ruse for the US and the British to go to war against Iraq...."
- Ruben Bannerjee, reporter for Aljazeera, Sunday 06April, 2003
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A black shapeless mass now lurks at the edge of our lives, the bogeyman of childhood, the dragon of our worst epiphanies.
Like a scene in an old Star Trek episode, it might be about whatever frightens us most, a changeling redefined by whatever appears to threaten us -- widespread poverty, or maybe the loss of American freedoms. It might be about a collapse of accepted social structures, impending genocide. War, military coups, revolution, global economic collapse, any of the dangers to a way of life we have possibly failed to seriously analyze.
The dragon hovering over our reality could be about any of these things; even worse, it could be about ALL of them. In a somber moment, it should be evident that everything in our world is simply falling apart. The four horsemen of the apocalypse -- pestilence, war, famine, death -- they are barely out of the gate.
And yet people of our nation go about their daily lives. The grocery clerk smiles and asks me how long this "fantastic" spring weather can last. No
acknowledgement of a boy choking to death on the black smoke of Baghdad while he stumbles across yellow unexploded and illegal bomblets in the alleys in search of his sister.
A neighbor calls to tell me she has an "uncontrollable" urge to throw together a pot of lima beans and should she add fresh pork or ham. No word of the hungry, nearly blood-drained child of Hilla who died still trying to walk, not comprehending that her legs, there moments ago, are now gone.
My doctor laughs, says, "Well, there was plenty of aid. We sent everything the Iraqis needed and Saddam stole it. Your blood sugar looks great. You could probably eat Black Forest cake for dinner and be fine." I could be fine if I ate chocolate cake for dinner. In Northern Iraq, a child is watching the
explosions in the skies and wanders off in shock, last seen mumbling about his missing father. He is his mother's only son. No one will ever find his body, and his mother will scream "Why?" for a full year.
But it's okay, because it's okay over HERE, where spring weather is magnificent, where there is a choice of fresh pork or ham for lima beans, where one angry and helpless activist could eat Black Forest cake for dinner.
When my first son was young, he was always leaving pieces of puzzles lying around. In frustration, I collected them all and dumped them into a "puzzle
can." He couldn't comprehend my tidiness. The separate pieces meant nothing; they were from DIFFERENT puzzles.
We are living in a "puzzle can."
W. B. Yeats foresaw it all in "The Second Coming":
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world..." A piece here, a piece there, nothing fitting, no
holding center. We have no picture upon which to focus. We have not defined the monster; we have not named the enemy. Wings spread, and the sky darkens, but we don't give a name to the horror above us.
Young people of our country are killing people who never threatened our nation or our lives. They are killing women and children because a man who never served honorably in the military and who spent his youth blowing up frogs with firecrackers moved from alcohol and cocaine to Jesus and now says we have to kill anyone HE accuses of siding with "tearists" or who HE fears might acquire a "nukular" bomb. He waves a bible in the air, says to hell with the wishes of the rest of the world, prides himself on following
instinct rather than knowledge, and half the country falls to its knees in admiration of this unctious "man of God."
If we object to his obsessional commands, we are branded traitors, accused of supporting Saddam, just as Vietnam war protestors were once called "commies." Same tired, repressive mentality.
One rightwing internet site clearly states: IF YOU DO NOT SUPPORT OUR PRESIDENT'S DECISIONS YOU ARE A TRAITOR TO OUR COUNTRY! This is, of course, the webpage of a fanatic, one who includes Martin Sheen, Julia Roberts, Daniel Ellsberg, Al Gore, and Jimmy Carter among the "traitors." The silliness of the site does not silence the question: just how many fanatics have taken over this country?
"The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned..." (Yeats) In 1946, the Nuremberg Tribunal concluded: "To initiate a war of aggression is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
Nuremberg also taught us that "just following orders" is not an excuse for what the winning side declares to be war crimes. So while the Germans couldn't get off the hook, neither can the Iraqis, who have been told
from the beginning of the invasion that if they DID follow their leaders' orders, they would be tried for war crimes. And yet, the sensitive American soldier
who is told to drop bombs on undefended Iraqi villages -- well, he must do what he is told to do and there's no wiggle room. He is ruled by people with divine rights; the power that comes from holding one hand on a bible and keeping the other outstretched to the oil oligarchy.
What is the wing opening in the sky? What is darkening the clouds? When does it descend in all its ominous power?
"The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity." (Yeats)
On April 4, 2003, Oliver Poole wrote in the LONDON
DAILY TELEGRAPH that American troops stood stunned by
the number of Iraqis they had killed.
"When do we know when it's over?" one Sgt. Scott
asked, according to Poole's report. "You could have
sent two men in to kill Saddam Hussein. Why did we
have to kill so many people? There were so many deaths
today." In the future, Sgt. Scott had best sit with
his back to the wall.
Somewhere the news is drowned out by the clicks of a
boy's joystick. "Zap! Got one. Took him out." He
doesn't comprehend that his Iraqi counterpart, running
toward his dead friend, was just "taken out" by an
American soldier.
Each day the Anglo-American forces (there IS no real
coalition; that's part of the lie) "take out" hundreds
of young Iraqis trying to defend their homeland from
foreign invaders. Half the civilians they are killing
are children.
>From the Puzzle Box, it's very difficult to point to
the dragon in the sky and name him. No piece fits
snugly against another. The chaos of disinformation
and confusion and outright lies has worn all edges
raw.
Some remember. The 2000 presidential election was
determined not by law but by rightwing Supreme Court
judges. We know now that a full and legal vote count
would have resulted in Al Gore clearly defeating
George W. Bush. Worse, the people of the country stood
by. There was minimal outrage, nothing of the type
that would have aroused great speeches by Patrick
Henry and Thomas Jefferson, had their democracy been
whisked from them so easily. The Bush people laughed
and threatened and demanded we "get over it." The Gore
people cowered, afraid for their jobs. The people
listened to the new president's advice to go shopping.
A little piece of what was America was broken off and
thrown away.
My son said to me the night of the infamous Supreme
Court ruling, "If only he doesn't get us into a
war..."
The deficit, after near ruination by "trickle-down"
economics under Reagan and Bush Sr., was eradicated
under Clinton, so that he left a surplus for his
predecessor. Environmental laws were overturned after
Clinton left; treaties were broken; the new president
removed our country from participation in fighting
global warming. Regulations good for consumers but
troublesome for corporations were relaxed or removed.
All the gains of the previous eight years were tossed,
as new laws and tax cuts began to transfer sizeable
amounts of wealth from the middle and lower classes to
those in the upper three percent.
The other countries on the globe questioned the
"lunacy" of this inexperienced new leader. But not
enough Americans did. Not being readers, Americans get
their news from corporate-owned cable television. And
what was good for Bush was good for the corporations
that determined what we would hear on the tube.
Besides, too many people remembered that Clinton, who
had led the country into peace and prosperity, had
lied about a sexual affair while he was in office.
They clucked their tongues, puffed out their chests self-righteously, Calvinist descendents to the bone, and embraced the former buyer of the Texas Rangers who made a fortune there through taxing the citizens of the area.
They embraced him because there was no indication that
he had committed a sexual sin, and the bible in his
hand proved that his drinking and drug days were over.
While Clinton wept for the disadvantaged, Bush
snickered when Karla Faye Tucker, a seriously abused
and disturbed woman who committed a heinous crime,
begged for her life. But the people of the country
judged: the sex, or the lie about it, condemned the compassionate man. The bible spared the callous man.
Separation of church and state began to turn fuzzy.
Most people did nothing, bought into the idea that the country's sagging economy could be healed simply by allowing the wealthy to pay less taxes and by the rest of us doing our patriotic duty by shopping, shopping, shopping, filling the coffers of the corporations that make the things we consume.
Some constitutionalists thought our founding fathers'
hearts could be heard to break over the decades. Some
felt it; more pieces of what was America were broken
off and thrown away.
Now today, April 8, the streets of Baghdad are strewn
with dead Iraqi soldiers who tried to fight off the
invaders. Behind them are the bodies of civilians,
"collateral damage." The cradle of civilization has
lost its autonomy. Its people had been saddled with an often-brutal dictator, but they opted for him over foreign invaders. They lost. The oil beneath their sand was far too valuable to be left in the hands of non-Americans.
Things fall apart; cohesion is an abstract word.
Former U.N. Coordinator Hans von Sponeck reflects
that, "The war of the US is a war of cowards." The
Iraqi people had no defenses against a military that
extracts a cost equalling half the total military
budget of the entire planet. The British House of
Commons was planning fund allocations for Iraq's
reconstruction before even the first bomb was dropped,
from the safety of six miles up.
Millions of people protested before the invasion took
place. The movement had the support of almost all the
leaders of the major churches of the world, including
an impassioned Pope John Paul II, who literally begged
for Bush to cancel the madness of this "immoral"
invasion. But half the people in the United States
bought cheap flags and waved them hard and cheered on
the rush to go "kick some Arab ass."
A shadow is seen from the sky.
The American people were told by the corporate media
that a "coalition" was behind the "liberation of the
Iraqi people." In truth, the invading army had the
support of 300,000 American soldiers, 46,000 British
soldiers, 2,000 Australians, 280 Romanians, 200 Poles,
and 70 Albanians. The latter three don't seem to have
made it to the front lines yet. The rest of the
"coalition" supplies no military power. They sign on
the dotted line and reach out for the check that you
and I will be paying on until our death. Then Colin
Powell tallies up the signatures and Wolf Blitzer
announces the growing size of the "coalition."
And the flag-wavers believe him.
As one example, Spain is listed as an ally. CNN
doesn't mention that 94 percent of the people of Spain
are strongly opposed to the Anglo-American invasion,
so strongly that Spain's leader, Aznar, friend of
Bush, doesn't dare send soldiers.
When countries get out of line, they're threatened,
and with every threat there is the view of the
absurdly over-priced military machine that makes
fortunes for the few and kills the many. France
threatened to veto a resolution giving the
Anglo-Americans the okay to go and start the killing
without evidence of wrongdoing, and now Americans are
taking forty-dollar bottles of French wine and pouring
them in the streets.
Wings open wide; some of us dare not leave our houses.
This administration has been unable to find the source
of the anthrax sent to Democratic leaders; it has been
unable to find Osama bin Laden, the presumed power
behind the 9-11 terrorist attack on the World Trade
Center. It has been unable to find Taliban leader,
Mullah Omar, and as of this date to find Saddam
Hussein.
Priorities are askew. A semi-naked statue in the
Department of Justice has required an $8,000 velvet
drape to cover an exposed breast. Laws have been
changed to allow people to be arrested and held
without charges. Veteran benefits are being scaled
down greatly, even as our soldiers go marching off to
the desert. A recent poll showed that half the people
in the country get Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein,
mortal enemies, confused.
Yes, of COURSE a shadow is seen on the sky. The
killing machine has gone to Iraq and is liberating
mothers and children from their bodies for the purpose
of taking away Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. No
WMD (weapons of mass destruction) have been found,
just as some of the weapons inspectors expected.
Today, April 8, a representative of Britain admits
that WMD simply may NOT be found.
The temptation to plant them must be growing. This
writer is convinced they WILL be found, but that what
is found will have been brought INTO Iraq, and not by
Iraqis. As stated in another paper, they WILL be found
because it is necessary they be found for Bush and
Blair to maintain any semblance of credibility.
On mainstream American television, we hear how
"coalition" forces now have the upper hand, as if a
military force with expenditures 237 times as great as
that of the defending enemy should have ANY problem
getting the upper hand. But here is what we hear too
little about:
al-Hilla: A pickup truck is bombed by an American
plane, and 56 Iraqi civilians are killed. Fifteen of
them, mostly children, are of one family. (Henry
Michaels, WSWS, April 5, 2003) Amnesty International
condemns the Hilla bombing and the US use of cluster
bombs, saying that the use of cluster bombs against a
civilian area of Hilla constitutes an indiscriminate
attack in grave violation of international
humanitarian law. We who care about senseless killing
as well as world opinion are mortified.
Czech president Vaclav Klaus has warned that using
force to impose democracy on Iraq is a notion "from
another universe." Ignoring President Klaus' outrage,
the U.S. continues to lie about its assembled
"coalition," claiming the Czech Republic as a member.
We who were made to watch a president be impeached
over a lie about a sexual indiscretion hang our heads
in shame.
An Anglo-American strike targets a farm in the
Al-Janabiin suburb near Baghdad, killing 20 civilians, including 11 children. Pentagon spokesperson Victoria Clarke continues her daily insistence that every effort possible is being made to avoid civilian casualties.
Anglo-American forces deny responsibility for the
bombing and killing of 62 civilians in the Shu'ale
marketplace on March 28, despite the fact that there
is no known instance of an Iraqi airline leaving the
ground since Iraq was first invaded. Journalist Robert
Fisk finds the shard with the identifying number of
the missile made by Raytheon in Texas.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair continue to ignore the 135
countries that are demanding an end to the "war" on
Iraq. We who want the world united in peace are
mortified.
Tony Blair states that before Saddam Hussein's
"shadow" fell on Iraq, its economy was vibrant and its
people prosperous. According to the figures used by
the Muslim Straits Times, however, the most vibrant
and prosperous period of Iraq's recent history appears
to have been between 1968 and 1979, precisely the
period when Saddam's shadow DID fall upon the country.
Bristol peace activist Jo Wilding is in Baghdad
witnessing the bombing. She reports that on March 24,
American planes bombed the village of Dialla, killing
three civilians. There were no military targets, just
farms and now-dead farm animals. The dead included a
young woman married a week ago. A neighbor shows Jo a
pink invitation to the wedding reception.
Why? Jo tries to describe Omar, the bridegroom, as he
sat silently crying on the floor in the hospital
corridor, leaning on the wall, body bent, head in his
hands. The entire village must wonder why Americans,
claiming to bring democracy to Iraq, had to kill a
young bride, still on her honeymoon, an eight-year
old, and another woman.
American grandmother Peggy Gish, after spending five
months in Baghdad in solidarity with the Iraqi people
who would become victims of the invasion, writes that,
"The United States is not waging a war to liberate
Iraq. This is an absolute lie. No liberation is going
on when we destroy their families and culture and
terrorise their children," she said. Peggy will be
called a traitor by most of the American people. She
has not followed the commands of George Bush.
"Earth heal" posts a picture of Ali, a 12-year old boy
who lives in Baghdad. Ali will never draw a picture or
milk a cow or play a flute. The US Military cut off
both his arms and slaughtered most of his family as he
lay sleeping in bed. Collateral damage, this family.
The Qatar News Agency and the Times of India report
that Father Panaritus, the chief priest of the Church
of Nativity in Bethlehem, believed to be the
birthplace of Jesus Christ and therefore one of
Christianity's holiest sites, has banned George Bush
and Tony Blair from entering the church. "They are war criminals and murderers of children. Therefore, the Church of Nativity decided to ban them access into the holy shrine forever," the priest explains.
U.S. corporate media makes no mention of Bush and
Blair being banned from the holy site. The 67 percent
of our people who get their news solely from cable
television will not hear of this act. They will
continue to see George Bush as a "man of god" for one
reason only: because they are TOLD to see him that
way.
Noted war correspondent Peter Arnett reports through
the UK Mirror on April 7 that U.S. planes dropped
bombs on al Salan, destroying the Shi'ite village of
15,000 with no miltary targets. He says that the
villagers can only ask "Why?" over and over. Arnett
talks about the dead and then says, "I was surrounded
by angry locals, pointing their fingers at me and then
at the bloody mess on the pavement, asking me what had
they done, why did they deserve this." This was the
type of neighbourhood the US military would have liked
to count upon as potential friends against Saddam.
Instead, Arnett watched 30 Iraqi soldiers sing
anti-American slogans and dance on a US Abrams tank.
We who care about senseless killing are mortified.
Noted journalist Robert Fisk, visits 11-year old Safa
Karim in the hospital. She is dying, a victim of an
American bomb fragment that struck her in the stomach.
Fisk has to watch her bleeding internally, writhing on
the bed with a massive bandage on her stomach and a
tube down her nose, while her black-shrouded mother
sits by the bed, breaking her silence to say that Safa
has been given 10 bottles of drugs and she has vomited
them all up.
A man opens the palms of his hands, the way Arabs do
when they want to express impotence. "What can we do?"
they always say, but the man remains silent. "But I'm
glad", Fisk writes. "How, after all, could I ever tell
him that Safa Karim must die for September 11, for
George Bush's fantasies and Tony Blair's moral
certainty and for Paul Wolfowitz's dreams of
"liberation" and for the 'democracy' which we are
blasting our way through these people's lives to
create."
How many want to take to the streets to scream at our
"men of God" to please stop killing children like
Safa? How many are ready for a nationwide boycott? How
many care deeply?
The pieces from the "puzzle can" are endless. We know
no more after studying fifty of them than we did after
the first outrage, the first attack on civilians and
the first killings of children. We are dumbfounded by
the silence of our own people.
So we stand numb, swallowing each time we look out the
window and try to name the shapeless thing in the
skies.
Is it retribution? Will we ALL die for the sins of our
leaders? Is it a worldwide revolution, in which the
innocent will be slaughtered as they are now being
slaughtered in Iraq?
Will it be a plague, or perhaps a collapse of our way
of life, which we've assumed to be a good thing? What
will the loss entail?
And how long before those wings descend, lower and
lower, in for the kill, like a bloodthirsty B-52.
I don't see that vision anymore. I did for a long
time, remaining a believer in universal justice. We
had allowed evil to prevail, and some form of evil
would eventually descend upon us.
No. The wings are not headed downward. The real horror
is in the ascending, not the descending. The dark
shape is not COMING; it is LEAVING. It will rise
higher and higher into the sky until there are no
remains to be spotted. It will be gone, perhaps
forever.
The dragon, I fear, is the tattered soul of our
nation.
* * * * *
Sources:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1049413227648_10/?
hub=SpecialEvent3
London Daily Telegraph, April 4, 2003, Oliver Poole
Interview with _Der Standard_ (Vienna), March 25 (von
Sponeck)
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/apr2003/clus-a05.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/2921345.stm
- Tom Carver
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?
msid=42083493
---------------------------------------------
Originally published on April 8, 2003 by America Held
Hostile.
Lisa Walsh Thomas, a former teacher and arts
columnist, is now a full-time activist, writing essays
and political poetry for numerous online liberal
journals. Her book of essays, "The Girl With Yellow
Flowers in Her Hair" will be available through
Pitchfork Publications by summer. Lisa can be reached
at saavedra1979@yahoo.com