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
Army Spc. David H. Ford IV, 20, of Ironton, Ohio, is shown in this photo, date and location unknown. Ford, with the 4th Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, in Fort Stewart, Ga., was killed Friday when an explosive detonated near his tank in Baghdad. (AP Photo)
Chard Whitlow
by Henry Reed
(Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Evening Postscript)
As we get older we do not get any younger.
Seasons return, and to-day I am fifty-five,
And this time last year I was fifty-four
And this time next year I shall be sixty-two.
And I cannot say I should like (to speak for myself)
To see my time over again – if you can call it time:
Fidgeting uneasily under a draughty stair,
Or counting sleepless nights in the crowded tube.
There are certain precautions – though none of them very reliable –
Against the blast from bombs and the flying splinter,
But not against the blast from heaven, vento dei venti,
The wind within a wind unable to speak for wind;
And the frigid burnings of purgatory will not be touched
By any emollient.
I think you will find this put,
Better than I could ever hope to express it,
In the words of Kharma: ‘It is, we believe,
Idle to hope that the simple stirrup-pump
Will extinguish hell.’
Oh, listeners,
And you especially who have turned off the wireless,
And sit in Stoke or Basingstoke listening appreciatively to
the silence,
(Which is also the silence of hell) pray, not for your skins,
but for your souls.
And pray for me also under the draughty stair.
As we get older we do not get any younger.
And pray for Kharma under the holy mountain.
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support SassyTexan’s humanitarian work by donating to the Houston Red Cross and being sure to indicate that it is in honor of MLW SassyTexan
give to the American Red Cross
support the Iraqi people
support the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)
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remember the fallen
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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
from the Ironton Tribune via the Iraq Page at PigStye…
you are much, much better than some people….
Oh, my, the grief. When I met Cindy Sheehan, I looked into her eyes and saw that grief, that horrible horrible fear that every parent has of outliving their child, but as she told me that day, “I’m not brave, because I’m not afraid”.
I hug them every day, but tonight just a bit tighter, my sons.
he was only twenty for cripes sake. look at that face! Just a babe in the woods and he died for lies. When are these people going to get it? Now over 1900 killed and it’s like no one cares on the neocon side. What is wrong with these people?
buy his own beer, but old enough to kill or die… it’s sad. All of it.
The Neocons care about nothing but profits and destroying freedom.
To them it’s all about numbers. Numbers they can compare with other numbers. “Look, it’s not as high as Viet Nam and it’s nothing compared to the Holocaust… it’s ONLY 1900.” ACK
That is why they tried so damn hard to call American Victims/Evacuees “Refugees”… they label.. so they don’t have to care or think.
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Listened to a broadcast with interviews from Sarajevo, due to high unemployment, men are signing up to become security guards in Iraq. Many men have some handicap and cannot find a normal job in former Yugoslavia.
Follows the same pattern in the lives of former soldiers and special forces from South Africa, Great Britain and Belgium. The Gurkhas are training the Afghan army in support of the coalition forces in Kabul.
If there is no political goal, the hard cash is welcome to survive!?
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Troops from Saudi Arabia allegedly killed three Serbian Territorial Defence members and placed the victims’ severed heads on poles near the «Tesanj turret». (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Second Report Submitted to the Commission of Experts, 1993, IHRLI Doc. No. 28401-29019, at 28533)
We must abolish all wars. We must stand up and say that nothing comes from killing..
The beheaded photo with the soldiers foot firmly planted on one of the three heads… NOTHING good can come from that except the ending of all wars and the politicians who support them.
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The US themselves undercut the UN weapons embargo to former Yugoslavian states in the nineties, by coordinating through Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia weapons and arms shipment to the Bosnian Muslims.
Try Google for the “Croatian pipeline”.
This policy helped to place an Al-Qaeda cel with a strong foothold in the region, the remnants are still in place, even after an attempt to dismantle it after 9/11.
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All I am is a sorry, angry American. Ashamed of their government. I hope enough Americans wake up and march and scream against this.
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Riots After UK Soldiers (SAS) Arrested ¶ Updated!
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Where have we heard this before …
You think MoD will file a complaint with Basra Governor to have explosives returned?
About 500 civilians and policemen held a protest on Wednesday in downtown Basra denouncing “British aggression.”
Several hours later, Basra’s provincial council held an emergency meeting and voted unanimously “to stop dealing with the British forces working in Basra and not to cooperate with them because of their irresponsible aggression on a government facility.”
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