image: A brother of a truck driver, crouching right, weeps by his body at Baghdad’s Yarmouk hospital Tuesday June 14, 2005. His brother was killed in a recent ambush at Khaldiyah, a town 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of Baghdad last week. The bodies of 24 men, some beheaded, killed in recent ambushes on convoys in western Iraq have been brought to a Baghdad hospital, Monday night, morgue official said Tuesday. (AP Photo/Mohammed Uraibi)
Cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, and European Tribune.
image and poem below the fold
Regime Change
by Andrew Motion
Advancing down the road from Nineveh
Death paused a while and said ‘Now listen here.
You see the names of places roundabout?
They’re mine now, and I’ve turned them inside out.
Take Eden, further south: At dawn today
I ordered up my troops to tear away
Its walls and gates so everyone can see
That gorgeous fruit which dangles from its tree.
You want it, don’t you? Go and eat it then,
And lick your lips, and pick the same again.
Take Tigris and Euphrates; once they ran
Through childhood-coloured slats of sand and sun.
Not any more they don’t; I’ve filled them up
With countless different kinds of human crap.
Take Babylon, the palace sprouting flowers
Which sweetened empires in their peaceful hours –
I’ve found a different way to scent the air:
Already it’s a by-word for despair.
Which leaves Baghdad – the star-tipped minarets,
The marble courts and halls, the mirage-heat.
These places, and the ancient things you know,
You won’t know soon. I’m working on it now.’
support the Iraqi people
support the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)
support CARE
support the victims of torture
support the fallen
support the troops
support the troops and the Iraqi people
read `This is what John Kerry did today,’ the diary by lawnorder that prompted this series
read Riverbend’s blog – `Bagdhad Burning’
read Dahr Jamail’s Iraq Dispatches
witness every day
