images: Ali Belaroussi and Azzedine Belkadi, abducted Thursday, July 21, 2005, in Baghdad, Iraq. Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed in an Internet posting Wednesday that it has killed two kidnapped Algerian diplomats…the second reported slayings of Arab envoys this month.

Cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, and My Left Wing.

images and poem below the fold

An undated file photograph shows Algeria’s top envoy to Iraq, Ali Belaroussi, who was abducted Thursday, July 21, 2005, in Baghdad, Iraq. Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed in an Internet posting Wednesday that it has killed two kidnapped Algerian diplomats, Ali Belaroussi and Azzedine Belkadi, the second reported slayings of Arab envoys this month. (AP Photo/File)
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An undated file photograph shows Algerian diplomat Azzedine Belkadi who was abducted Thursday, July 21, 2005, in Baghdad, Iraq. Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed in an Internet posting Wednesday that it has killed two kidnapped Algerian diplomats, Ali Belaroussi and Azzedine Belkadi, the second reported slayings of Arab envoys this month. (AP Photo/File)
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A TV grab taken on July 26 from a video posted on the Internet shows Ben Kadi Ezzeddin(top) and Ali Belaroussi, the two Algerian diplomats kidnapped in Iraq. The group of Al-Qaeda’s Iraq frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said it has killed the men, according to an Internet statement.(AFP-HO)
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A daughter of slain Algerian mission chief in Iraq, Ali Billaroussi, cries from the balcony of her parent’s house in Algiers, July 28, 2005, as they held a minute of silence in memory of the killing of the two kidnapped Algerian envoys in Iraq. Al Qaeda in Iraq said on Wednesday it killed two kidnapped Algerian envoys, including Ali Billaroussi, because of their government’s support for the United States. REUTERS/Larbi Louafi
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Gacela of the Dark Death
by Federico García Lorca

  I want to sleep the sleep of the apples,
I want to get far away from the busyness of the cemeteries.
I want to sleep the sleep of that child
who longed to cut his heart open far out at sea.

  I don’t want them to tell me again how the corpse keeps all its blood,
how the decaying mouth goes on begging for water.
I’d rather not hear about the torture sessions the grass arranges for
nor about how the moon does all its work before dawn
with its snakelike nose.

  I want to sleep for half a second,
a second, a minute, a century,
but I want everyone to know that I am still alive,
that I have a golden manger inside my lips,
that I am the little friend of the west wind,
that I am the elephantine shadow of my own tears.

  When it’s dawn just throw some sort of cloth over me
because I know dawn will toss fistfuls of ants at me,
and pour a little hard water over my shoes
so that the scorpion claws of the dawn will slip off.

  Because I want to sleep the sleep of the apples,
and learn a mournful song that will clean all earth away from me,
because I want to live with that shadowy child
who longed to cut his heart open far out at sea.

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This diary series is dedicated to all who suffer because of war

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 Bagdhad Burning
read Dahr Jamail’s Iraq Dispatches
read Today in Iraq
read this soldier’s blog
witness every day