this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war

we love and support our troops, just as we love and support the Iraqi people – without exception, or precondition, or judgement.

image and poem below the fold

Residents and a policeman pull a victim out of a burning minibus shortly after a bomb exploded in Baghdad August 27, 2006. A car bomb in central Baghdad killed five people and wounded 10 on Sunday, police said. The blast, which shook central Baghdad and sent columns of black smoke into the air, took place on Saadoun Street, a busy commercial area, police said. The target of the attack was not clear, but there is a hotel complex nearby and Iraqi police and army have checkpoints on Saadoun Street.
REUTERS/Namir Noor-Eldeen (IRAQ)

from Secrets in the Sand  
by Marjorie Agosín  

And the night was a precipice,
And the night was a hollow sound,
Beyond all depths and silences.
It was night in the city of Juárez and the dead women of Juárez
Protected the living ones.
It didn’t seem like a typical night at the border.
It seemed more like the drowsiness of a mute inferno
And flames transforming into knives.

Night in Juárez was a perverse mirror
Where death breathed its hollow
Trophies over the sand.

And night in the city of Juárez didn’t have a beginning or an end
Just fear
Just death.

– – –