( – promoted by buhdydharma )
Crossposted at The Big Orange.
There is no glory in the violence we choose to inflict upon other human beings.
There is no justice for the victims of our collective hate. There is only the suffering of the many made possible by the decisions of a few. Do not come to me with open arms or begging bowl when the alliance you seek is one of kinship or dispensation for your brutality. I am not your brother or your keeper.
There are children standing here,
Arms outstretched into the sky,
Tears drying on their face.
He has been here.
Brothers lie in shallow graves.
Fathers lost without a trace.
A nation blind to their disgrace,
Since he’s been here.
You who walk on marbled floors behind the gates that keep you isolated from the realities of your decisions to kill with impunity and destroy the lives of innocents to feed your tortured egos and fill your swollen coffers, you who glorify the hatred you breed in the hearts of the ignorant, I accuse you.
You who profit from the fear that is beaten into the collective consciousness of the masses under the pretense of patriotism, of honor, of duty, of country. I accuse you.
You who defend the indefensible with your lies and omissions, who obscure the truth with your false commissions, who with turn of phrase, through bright shiny perfect teeth, smile and give permission to kill and to maim and to rape and to die blind and happy in the pursuit of all these things we hold self evident under the illusion of exceptionality and freedom I accuse you.
The purpose of this diary is to share with you a few of my thoughts and to share this powerful video.
The song was written by a former soldier while deployed to the Balkans. It is through imagery and words and sound that we create anchors in our emotional landscape. Anchors that can serve to remind us of our humanity, our consciousness, and our struggle.
This video does that for me. It reminds me of why we struggle, why we fight the good fight, and why we cannot let any more war mongers anywhere near the White House. It is imperative that we end the occupation of Iraq, bring our soldiers home, and give them the support they will need to reintegrate into their families, lives and communities.
And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.Houses burnt beyond repair.
The smell of death is in the air.
A woman weeping in despair says,
He has been here.
Tracer lighting up the sky.
It’s another families’ turn to die.
A child afraid to even cry out says,
He has been here.And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.There are children standing here,
Arms outstretched into the sky,
But no one asks the question why,
He has been here.
Old men kneel and accept their fate.
Wives and daughters cut and raped.
A generation drenched in hate.
Yes, he has been here.And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.
The occupation of Iraq has gone on long enough. I urge you to learn the truth.
The Iraq veterans against the war website is a good place to start.
From a peacemaker and great human being Frank Fools Crow who lived his life as a hollow bone.
peace.
My friend Cronsense gave me this link: A flash presentation of this song, and commentary, on the occupation of Iraq from our own Ava Lou.
And finally, another video that encapsulates the title of this diary.
Soldier Alexis Janicki. His story is heartbreaking. Please take the time to watch this young man tell his story.
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out of Iraq. You stop the killing, by stopping the killing.
Too many good people have been destroyed, families broken, lives shattered.
It is way past time to end this.
It is heartbreakingly beautiful.
Peace.
this is what I needed to see this morning, thank you so much.
No words…he said it perfectly.
This is a wonderful diary. But you need to know that I almost didn’t read it when I saw the sarcastic reference to “The Big Orange Menace”.
Others were probably offended by that as well. It was an unnecessary bit of mockery that struck a jarring note in an otherwise excellent piece of work.
For that reason, as much as this essay touched me, I will not rec it.
Especially the “Peace Takes Courage” video.
But it is all strong, strong.
Each piece builds from the one before.
Why don’t we learn?
Why are we so slow to learn?
When will we learn?
Many of us have learnd.
Many in the past learned and knew.
But our leaders do not know and do not learn.
And so they drag us on into deeper and deeper brutality, inhumanity.
We must stand up and say NO.
We must stop these men with their dead eyes and dead hearts.
—thank you for this piece FireCrow—
I appreciated the raw emotion so evident on the face of the singer as he sang. He was/is clearly haunted by what he saw, did, experienced.
The whole post hit home.
The only thing I found…difficult…complicated…hard to completely digest was the last interview with that poor soldier/trained killer.
It’s clear that he opposes the war. But his lust for targets, his frustration over not being able to just kill…what he was trained to do…his fundamental belief in the system of government and a need to believe that the president would want to hear from a flesh and blood chess pawn…combined with music from a song I already understand as completely manipulative…
That made it difficult to completely take what he was saying seriously.
Although it’s clear he has been harmed by his experience in Iraq and that, as I said up above, he opposes continued occupation, there he doesn’t understand that his country is actually completely comprised of occupied territories and that the democracy he believes in was birthed out of the ashes of a confederacy the founding fathers smashed so as to better dominate the people who were here first.
His ignorance about this fact makes his attestations about being against the unlawful occupation of Iraq a little weak and simple.
Amerikkka invaded Iraq because the resources it already commandeered from Native peoples are not sufficient to feed it’s greedy maw. 🙂
The soldiers are considered expendable in the imperialist thrust to find and steal new resources. This is why the government thinks 4,000 soldier deaths is an acceptable loss.
I had to fill in these blanks as I read and felt and looked and thought.
But on the whole I was moved by this post. Thank you so much for putting all the work in.