“Speak out for those who cannot speak,
for the rights of all the destitute.”
Proverbs 31:8
this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war and other disasters
we honor courage in all its forms
cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, and My Left Wing.
april is national poetry month
image and poem below the fold
An Iraqi girl uses a lantern to do her homework in Baghdad. Iraq marks the third anniversary of the US-led invasion Monday deadlocked over its next national government, plagued by rampant lawlessness and faced with the threat of civil war
(AFP/Sabah Arar)
A Myth of Devotion
by Louise Glück
When Hades decided he loved this girl
he built for her a duplicate of earth,
everything the same, down to the meadow,
but with a bed added.
Everything the same, including sunlight,
because it would be hard on a young girl
to go so quickly from bright light to utter darkness
Gradually, he thought, he’d introduce the night,
first as the shadows of fluttering leaves.
Then moon, then stars. Then no moon, no stars.
Let Persephone get used to it slowly.
In the end, he thought, she’d find it comforting.
A replica of earth
except there was love here.
Doesn’t everyone want love?
He waited many years,
building a world, watching
Persephone in the meadow.
Persephone, a smeller, a taster.
If you have one appetite, he thought,
you have them all.
Doesn’t everyone want to feel in the night
the beloved body, compass, polestar,
to hear the quiet breathing that says
I am alive, that means also
you are alive, because you hear me,
you are here with me. And when one turns,
the other turns–
That’s what he felt, the lord of darkness,
looking at the world he had
constructed for Persephone. It never crossed his mind
that there’d be no more smelling here,
certainly no more eating.
Guilt? Terror? The fear of love?
These things he couldn’t imagine;
no lover ever imagines them.
He dreams, he wonders what to call this place.
First he thinks: The New Hell. Then: The Garden.
In the end, he decides to name it
Persephone’s Girlhood.
A soft light rising above the level meadow,
behind the bed. He takes her in his arms.
He wants to say I love you, nothing can hurt you
but he thinks
this is a lie, so he says in the end
you’re dead, nothing can hurt you
which seems to him
a more promising beginning, more true.
– – –
put a meaningful magnet on your car or metal filing cabinet
read Ilona’s important new blog – PTSD Combat
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
Thank you for making Iraq War Grief Daily Witness a Koufax Award Finalist for Best Series in 2005.
I find it a shame that this girl has to u se a lantern to study by. There should be electicity by now for all to be had. This was a modern nation. It still has not got proper water, electicity or sewage removal. NO real medical care. NO educational instution that is far from fear of going to school. It is now three years! This should have been a given for all that is going on, or atleast from what the administration is saying. We know why and we know it will stay that way until we get out. The Iraqis can and will do for themselves.
Thanks Rub. I hope you win the award for all your hard work you do on a daily basis for many sites. I voted for you! hugs…
wars of choice
fought for the spoils
waged by men
without hearts
long given over
to self created gods
of greed and vengence
it is of no notice, then
when thousands die
for such a lofty calling
collateral damage
cannot be helped
.
Through tough government stance … and negotiations!
MADRID (CNN News International) 5 minutes ago — Basque separatist group ETA plans to declare a permanent cease-fire from Friday, a report in the Basque newspaper Gara today.
Gara is the group’s usual vehicle for statements. The announcement was first made on Basque television.
A cease-fire would be the first step in a long-awaited peace process with ETA, which has killed 850 people since 1968 in its fight to carve an independent state out of northern Spain and south western France.
● ETA Timeline: Four decades of violence
≈ Cross-posted from my diary —
Breaking News: ETA Offers Permanent Truce ≈
Dems’ Template for Success: Follow Jack Murtha …
LEAVE Iraq to the Iraqis
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
and incumbents alike. If you really belive in Democracy AND want our vote in November, get behind Feingold and Conyers to take the Fascist war profiteering warmonger OUT of office. Take a stand against the illegal occupation of Iraq NOW!
Eman Ahmed Khamas said that women could go to school, to work, to the store without fear of being shot or raped.
Remember: THEY ARE US!
Earlier this week on Larry King, Barbara Boxer spoke eloquently about the suffering caused by war. Behind her, two candles flickered. It made me think of you immediately, Rub, and I wondered if she knows about your diaries.
Mortar attack kills Iraqi police
Peace
Vote for RubDMC as best series please.
in Basra since Iraq invasion, says aid worker
Light A Candle For
Peace, Tolerance, Understanding
and For The Children – Innocence Lost!
We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men: George Orwell
~~~~~~~~~~
Gotham Gazette
Back From Iraq
by Joshua Brustein
19 Mar 2006
Faced with homelessness, about forty veterans call Jason Ortiz each month looking for help. Ortiz is a caseworker at New Era Veterans, a residence for previously homeless veterans in the Soundview section of the Bronx. Most of the residents there left the military decades ago, Ortiz says. But recently about five of the 40 calls he gets every month are from veterans returning from Iraq.
Ortiz’s voicemail has the same discouraging message for all those who dial his number: There is no more room.
~~~~~~~~~~
They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening : George Orwell
~~~~~~~~~~
Source: Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA)
Date: 21 Mar 2006
More children dying in Basra since Iraq invasion, says aid worker
Vienna_(dpa) _ More children than ever before are dying of diarrhoea-related diseases in the British-occupied Iraqi city of Basra, an Austrian aid worker said Tuesday.
Vienna physician Eva-Maria Hobiger, initiator of the medical aid project Aladin’s Lamp for children with cancer, said the health system in Basra was in a grave crisis.
She said the health care situation in Basra was decimated by the international sanctions against the Saddam Hussein regime, but since the war the situation had become even worse.
Not even the most necessary items such as infusion solutions were available, and there was scant prospect of improvement, she said on Vienna’s Radio Stephansdom, according to the Catholic press agency Kathpress.
Not a single medical consignment has reached children in Basra, she said, adding that “without Aladin’s Lamp and our deliveries, the children would die.”
The situation of water supplies in the city was also catastrophic, Many who survive diarrhoea-related diseases contracted from contaminated drinking water were severely undernourished.
For months, only 40 per cent of the water needs in the city of 700,000 people had been covered from the mains. The rest had been taken from the Shatt al-Arab, a river which besides bacteria carried huge quantities of poisonous substances, Hobiger said.
~~~~~~~~~~
Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind: George Orwell
~~~~~~~~~~
A Time for Heresy {Another Must Read From Moyers}
by Bill Moyers, TomPaine.com
It is time to drive the money changers from the temple of democracy.
~~~~~~~~~~
The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them: George Orwell
~~~~~~~~~~
Bush’s Skunktails
by Robert B. Reich, TomPaine.com
George W. Bush will harm a few Republicans this fall’s elections — but he has damaged the cause of good government for years to come.
~~~~~~~~~~
Number Of Iraqi Civilians Slaughtered In America’s War? As Many As 250,000
Number of U.S. Military Personnel Slaughtered (Officially acknowledged) In Bush’s War 2319
The War in Iraq Costs $249,019,818,285 See the cost in your community
~~~~~~~~~~
Scott Galindez | Someone Should Tell Bush Why We Went to War
Scott Galindez: After yesterday’s presidential news conference, I am beginning to wonder if George W. Bush knows why we went to war with Iraq. He should just come clean and admit that we went to war because Dick, Wolfie, and Rummy told him to.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Never again shall one generation of veterans abandon another.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Robert Scheer | Bush Continues to Deal in Denial
Robert Scheer writes: On the third anniversary of the beginning of his Iraq catastrophe, President Bush yet again dealt in denial, but this time the carefully screened audience at the Cleveland City Club wasn’t buying it. Perhaps most on target was an elderly gentleman who cited what he said were the three main reasons for going to war in Iraq – WMD, Iraq’s ties to the September 11, 2001, terrorists and the alleged purchase of nuclear material from Niger – and then noted dryly that all three of these rationales turned out to be false.
Those are great quotes, Jim.
Shouldn’t this be presented as “long-term insurgent plots in Basra thwarted?”