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.
image and poem below the fold
An Iraqi woman cries as she grieves for her relative during a demonstration in central Baghdad November 27, 2005. Relatives of the woman said her brother was taken by members of the Iraqi army several months ago and had not been seen since. She and other women were protesting outside Iraq’s Human Rights ministry asking for an investigation into the disappearances.
REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz
Sparrow Trapped in the Airport
by Averill Curdy
Never the bark and abalone mask
cracked by storms of a mastering god,
never the gods’ favored glamour, never
the pelagic messenger bearing orchards
in its beak, never allegory, not wisdom
or valor or cunning, much less hunger
demanding vigilance, industry, invention,
or the instinct to claim some small rise
above the plain and from there to assert
the song of another day ending;
lentil brown, uncounted, overlooked
in the clamorous public of the flock
so unlikely to be noticed here by arrivals,
faces shining with oils of their many miles,
where it hops and scratches below
the baggage carousel and lights too high,
too bright for any real illumination,
looking more like a fumbled punch line
than a stowaway whose revelation
recalls how lightly we once traveled.
– – –
read Ilona’s important diary at MLW – Returning Vet PTSD – One Soldier’s Story
view the pbs newshour silent honor roll (with thanks to jimstaro at booman.)
take a private moment to light one candle among many (with thanks to TXSharon)
support Veterans for Peace
support the Iraqi people
support the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)
support CARE
support the victims of torture
remember the fallen
support Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors – TAPS
support Gold Star Families for Peace
support the fallen
support the troops
support Iraq Veterans Against the War
support Military families Speak Out
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
witness every day
Click on the candle to copy the image into your own comment (you can leave it on my server), and/or rate this one – not for mojo, but to leave a small mark after taking this moment.
” I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”
from Dirge Without Music
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Two Britons killed in Iraq attack
Peace
for years for endless years
and the sins of Bush will not be forgiven.
Peace!
…and as DuctapeFatwa often reminds us, our children will pay for this.
Hi Michael…good to see you. Yes, our children will pay the price. Our children and the Iraqi children. It saddens me so.
I’m an American, but ultimately I’m a citizen of the world and to me “our” children means all our children.
Good to see you as well :o)
who wonders if his wife is leaving him.
Light A Candle For
Peace, Tolerance, Understanding
and For Innocence Lost!
Fascism then. Fascism now?
When people think of fascism, they imagine Rows of goose-stepping storm troopers
and puffy-chested dictators. What they don’t see is the economic and political
process that leads to the nightmare.
By Paul Bigioni
Before the rise of fascism, Germany and Italy were, on paper, liberal
democracies. Fascism did not swoop down on these nations as if from another
planet. To the contrary, fascist dictatorship was the result of political and
economic changes these nations underwent while they were still democratic. In
both these countries, economic power became so utterly concentrated that the
bulk of all economic activity fell under the control of a handful of men.
The ‘Mercenary’ Iraq Clip was captured by others before its removal from the Aegis site and has been put on line by several bloggers. It’s available for viewing here in both SWF and WMV formats.
Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger
of state and corporate power:
Benito Mussolini
“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of
private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state
itself. That, in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an
individual, by a group,” :
Franklin D. Roosevelt quotes
James Starowicz
USN ’67-’71
’67-’68: Meridian Mississippi/Naval Air Station
’68-’70: GMG3, Panama Canal Zone/Rodman Naval Base
’70-’71: GMG3, Coronado Calif – CounterInsurgency/S.E.R.E. School, Vietnam — In-Country COMNAVFORV
Member: Veterans For Peace
img src=”http://www.jsoucy.org/iraq/images/candle_flame_1.gif”>
My heart is breaking more each and every day as this war and its nonsense continues. I am having lots of difficulty understanding some of the horror if it, to be for sure! PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Light A Candle For
Peace, Tolerance, Understanding
and For Innocence Lost!
Orlando Holds Hope for Young War Victim
By Rich McKay
The Orlando Sentinel
Mirror URL
Sunday 27 November 2005
The 2-year-old Iraqi girl will get treatment thanks to a network of compassion.
Tiny shrapnel bits pepper the left side of 2-year-old Alaa’ Abd’s face, looking at first glance like black freckles. Metal slivers in her left eye have left her with little vision, and each day she sees less.
In hopes of restoring her sight, Alaa’ and her father arrived Saturday in Orlando, where she will be seen this week by an eye specialist.
Alaa’ became one of the faces of the Iraq war in May when, her family says, a US tank shell burst inside their home, blinding the child and rending her flesh from head to toe. The explosion killed two of her brothers and three cousins.
The children, all younger than 10, were having a tea party.
Now Alaa’ (pronounced Ah-LAH) has a chance of regaining her sight thanks to the Orlando eye surgeon, a local college student who wouldn’t take no for an answer and the group NoMoreVictims.org that tries to get medical help for the war’s youngest victims.
“By God’s will, my daughter will see,” Khalid Hamdan Abd, a 27-year-old carpenter, said through interpreter Najla Abu-Shaaban.
Father and daughter are staying at the Ronald McDonald House in Orlando, where they were settling in Saturday after a harrowing trip from their home near the war-torn city of Qaim, not far from the Syrian border. The area is a hot spot for insurgents and foreign fighters in western Iraq’s Al Anbar province. The US military recently moved thousands of troops and firepower into the area in a bid to root out the insurgents.
“We can only hope that there will be peace,” Abd said. “We thank all the organizations and Americans who are helping [with his daughter]. But at the same time, we want people to know the truth.”
Abd was out looking for work so that he could buy food for his family on the day of the attack.
He found his daughter buried beneath the rubble, near the bodies of his sons.
Her wounds were so severe that at first doctors told the distraught father there was nothing they could do. They explained that they did not want to waste precious bandages on someone certain to die.
But Alaa’ defied the odds and lived.
An Iraqi doctor finally agreed to perform basic surgery on the wounds, which included shrapnel shards embedded from top to toe.
Help came when NoMoreVictims.org, started by Cole Miller, a Los Angeles freelance writer and documentary photographer, and Vietnam veteran Alan Pogue asked Iraqi doctors for the names of children they could help. As a result, the story of Alaa’ appeared on their Web site, where it was seen by Barry University School of Law student Ashley Severance, 22, of Orlando.
“I had to help,” she said Saturday. “If that happened here, I would only hope that someone would help my child.”
Miller told her to find a doctor, a hospital and a place for the family to stay. He explained that the family would also need special visas to leave Iraq and visit the United States and money to travel and live on.
“I’ve lost count at how many times people told me no,” Severance said. “I made phone call after phone call after phone call.”
Severance finally reached Dr. Saad Shaikh with Central Florida Retina, who agreed to do the surgery at no charge. He could not be reached for comment Saturday, but Severance said Shaikh got an Orlando hospital to provide a bed and an operating room for free. Severance did not identify the hospital at the request of its officials.
The next hurdle was to raise the money to get Alaa’ and her father out of Iraq. Her mother, who is pregnant, was unable to get a visa and had to stay behind.
After a journey across the desert to neighboring Jordan, the Abd family reached the American Embassy, which arranged further help and signed off on three-month visas allowing them to enter the United States.
Alaa’ misses her mother and cries often. But Abd said they must do everything they can to save her sight, however little.
They expect to meet with the surgeon Wednesday and will probably be here until early next year, giving Alaa’ time to recover from the procedure.
Abd said that no one has taken responsibility for the deaths and injuries. He said he is convinced it was the Americans because “they were the only ones there [with that firepower].”
A Department of Defense news release about the events of that day describes a firefight with a truckload of terror suspects in Qaim and noted that a female child was wounded. No other details were provided.
Abd said that although he thinks Americans killed and wounded his children, he is happy to be in the United States, where he can get help for his daughter.
The road ahead is uncertain, and Abd worries about what will happen to his family in Iraq while he is away.
“Hopefully, we will have a home,” he said. “We can’t tell at all what the future will be.”
——-
James Starowicz
USN ’67-’71
’67-’68: Meridian Mississippi/Naval Air Station
’68-’70: GMG3, Panama Canal Zone/Rodman Naval Base
’70-’71: GMG3, Coronado Calif – CounterInsurgency/S.E.R.E. School, Vietnam — In-Country COMNAVFORV
Member: Veterans For Peace
Will we soon see the Bagdhad chapter of Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo?
May the grief and rage of all the mothers of all the disappeared around the world be a force powerful enough to end this horror.