this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war and other disasters
cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, and My Left Wing.
3 images and poem below the fold
Martha Perez wipes away tears while holding a picture of her son Luis Alberto Figueroa, a U.S. Marine killed in Iraq, as thousands participate in an anti-war march in downtown Los Angeles September 24, 2005. Thousands of protesters flooded Los Angeles on Saturday to stage demonstrations against the U.S.-led war in Iraq and to demand that President George W. Bush bring troops home.
REUTERS/Phil McCarten
Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, Monday, Sept. 26, 2005, pauses at the gate of the White House holding a photo of her son Casey who was killed in Iraq last year. She tried to see President Bush and was turned away . Sheehan along with other anti-war demonstrators protested outside the White House and were later arrested.
(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
Maddison Campbell,19, wife of Sgt. Jeremy M. Campbell, of Middlebury, Pa., watches as members of the U.S. Army 3rd US Infantry (The Old Guard), carry the flagged draped casket during funeral services at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2005. Campbell died on Sept. 11, 2005, in Baghdad, Iraq, where an improvised explosive device detonated near his Humvee during patrol operations.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
from The Lotos-Eaters
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
VI
Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
And dear the last embraces of our wives
And their warm tears: but all hath suffer’d change:
For surely now our household hearths are cold,
Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes over-bold
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten years’ war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Is there confusion in the little isle?
Let what is broken so remain.
The Gods are hard to reconcile:
‘Tis hard to settle order once again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
Long labour unto aged breath,
Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.
– – –
support the Iraqi people
support the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)
support CARE
support the victims of torture
remember the fallen
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
Leonard Clark’s blog has been taken down
witness every day
is safer because Mothers are being arrested by the Bush Regime.
I shook with disgust and worry when I heard Sheehan and others were arrested. The priorities of this craperment.
I’m also proud of her and all those who continue to risk arrest and will continue to march.
It isn’t meaningless. It’s how this war will be stopped.
Janet, I added this comment to the diary you posted earlier this week.
I don’t know what to say. Your words … I see your pictures every day, but your words… very emotional right now I guess. Because I can only say thank you.
I missed several people this weekend. My family of course, but I also was wishing you were there (were your ears burning, because several spoke highly of your daily work) You help me wake up and continue to dream.
Thank you for the very kind words. I don’t think I’m worthy of such a fine reply, but thank you š
.
What else can I say …
No democratic elections will change such violence!
«« click on pic for multiple photos »»
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
.
Labor activists pressure Blair on Iraq
By Hannah K. Strange
UPI UK Correspondent
Published September 28, 2005
LONDON — Britain is in Iraq because it has a duty to protect, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told delegates at the Labor conference Wednesday. One elderly delegate, however, voiced his disagreement rather loudly, and was arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act for his troubles.
Hailing the recent U.N. recognition the international community has a “responsibility to protect” all people from genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, Straw said had this responsibility been in place at the time of the Iraq invasion, the international divisions that resulted might have been avoided.
Britain was in Iraq under a unanimous U.N. Security Council mandate, he stressed, and was there for “one reason only — to help the elected Iraqi government build a secure, democratic and stable nation.”
It was at this point that an elderly delegate on the balcony — who like many in the hall had been engaged in disgruntled muttering throughout — shouted shrilly:
“That’s a lie, and you know it!”
All heads in the audience flicked suddenly toward the balcony as some five security guards descended on the gentleman, who was later revealed to be 82 years old. As he continued to shout and struggle against the guards grabbing at his arms and legs, a man in his 30s pleaded “Just leave him alone.”
Within moments he too was swept out by a gang of guards, who lifted him from his seat by the arms and legs and dragged him out of the hall, as he asked repeatedly: “What have I done?”
The elderly gentlemen was then spared the manhandling suffered by his interlocutor, and was allowed to walk out of the hall, escorted on both sides. It later transpired he was arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Maddison Campbell was a 15yo girl when 9/11 happened. Four short years later to the day, she’s an Iraq war widow.
I have a 16yo stepson, and stories like this really make me wonder what his generation’s future is going to be. How many of his classmates will be widows, or corpses, by the time they’re old enough to drink legally?
It blows my mind.