War No More - 01/04/08

     Is it my imagination, or is madness creeping from the White House across the face of the globe? I don't think it has anything to do with April Fools' Day or the end of college basketball and the beginning of the baseball season. It may be Bush on a junket in Russian territory to look into Putin's GB-eyes to see if a soul is still there. I have to confess that some of the madness is escaping from bad dreams and nightmares. Just the other night I dreamed I was trapped on the Titanic. A madcap captain kept announcing there was nothing to worry about because he was an optimistic fellow and always held a glass that was half-full and was sure that the economy was going to come ROARING back. He tried to reassure passengers by saying that the ship had not hit an iceberg, but the edge of an ice floe the size of Vermont. Sitting in the middle of this huge detached sheet of ice was Rush Limbaugh, naked, holding Ann Poltergeist on his lap with a nice wide stance, both singing "Al Gore's Global Warming Is a Hoax."  From years of practice, Ann was able to suck in and expel the methane gas without passing out.

     This hideous picture changed to a US naval ship, the Caine, with an equally crazy captain who was obsessed by frozen strawberries, steel balls, and yellow cakes from Nigeria. The crew mutinies on the high seas, and the captain is declared nola competent, or whatever the Latin term for nuts is. (You don't expect me to check on spelling in the middle of a nightmare, do you?) Blindfolded, stripped, manacled, the captain undergoes extraordinary rendition at a black site where torture is permitted.

     A quick shift to Iraq. Bombs detonated in the Green Zone. Bloody conflict in Basra. Towns and villages under attack. What do we hear from the one who ordered the invasion? "Everything is normal in Iraq." If this isn't enough to question the sanity of our commander-in-chief, his statement that our soldiers should look forward to duty in Iraq and Afghanistan as a "romantic" adventure. Romantic? With over 4,000 dead and 30,000 grievously wounded, no one in his right mind would suggest that having a "romantic affair" in those war-torn countries was the right thing to do. I hope he has the decency to send the twin and her husband-to-be on their honeymoon among the deadly fields where poppies grow, row on row, each flower symbolic of a dead soldier.

     On the anniversary of the beginning of the Bush War, he said: "I vow so long as I am president to make sure that these lives were not lost in vain."             

        

      And where was his sidekick, the one who shoots lawyers, doing on the fifth anniversary of their war? He was fishing from a sultan's yacht.

                                  SO?

     When VP Cheney was asked about his response to a recent poll that  showed most Americans are opposed to the war, he said: "So?"

     All of the arrogance of the administration was buried in that short word. "So what? Or, "screw the majority." I think you'll have to agree that such a response from the second top gun shoots down the glorified democracy that Bush claims we are planting in Iraq. I know who is in the final throes without mission accomplished. Oh, where is Molly Ivins now that we need her. She would take a strong stand against water boarding and other forms of torture, along with the recent firebombing of Basra. She might echo Kurt Vonnegut: "If Jesus were alive today, we would kill Him with lethal injections." Cheney would call that progress. Although blind like the Greek soothsayerTiresias, I don't possess his powers, but I did predict last December that when spring arrived in Basra, it would bring death and destruction.

     A recent letter to the editor of a local paper made me think that Molly had been resurrected. Rae Kramer wrote: Twisted metal, stinking black smoke, unidentifiable body parts, disoriented stand byers, rivulets of blood--this is business as usual in Baghdad.

     Explosions, sirens, wailing mothers, weeping children, gunshots - this is business as usual in Baghdad. Water, sometimes; electricity, sometimes; fresh bread and fruit, sometimes; funeral processions, often; inadequate medical care, often; soldiers with guns ready, often - this is business as usual in Baghdad.

     Can one really empathize enough to feel what life must be like in Baghdad? Can we really understand what it must feel like to know that everyone one sees has lost a child or parent or cousin or brother or friend or coworker or schoolmate?

     Today marks the fifth anniversary of the unprovoked, illegal and immoral invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq by the United States armed forces. We, the people who fund the ongoing presence or unwanted occupying troops and mercenaries, are not even permitted to see the coffins of our soldiers who died, for fear that this reminder of business as usual will arouse in us a passion to end the occupation now.

     Today will also be a day to say no to impotence - of Congress, the mainstream press and ourselves. We will gather at Clinton Square at noon to say, "No Business as Usual." The call to action is to join me and others as we pause in our life as we know it, and call out, as one voice, "Let there be peace!"

                                     War No More!

    Meanwhile, the close race to be the Democratic presidential candidate goes on between Hillary and Obama. On this special day, Obama has a razor-thin lead. Rush Limbaugh, the conservative mouthpiece of the Slime-by media, is trying to egg them both on with his Operation Chaos.

     One of Hillary's ads provides much grist for his attack mill--the ad about answering the emergency phone in the White House. On that topic, I too sent a letter to the editor of the local paper.

     Letter to the Editor:  According to a recent article, John McCain will be able to protect our children by handling any 3 a.m. emergency hot line calls. Suppose McCain is not the one in the White House to take the call.

     "Hello. What? Yes, I know it rang six times. What do you expect at this ungodly hour of the night? You're what? No, absolutely not. Take that order and get lost. Who am I? I just happen to be the commander-in-chief."

     After hanging up. "Bill, did you use the emergency phone in the Oval Office to order a late-night snack? I've told you not to do that. I almost ordered an air strike on a Papa John's Pizza."

     "I'm sorry, my little Valkyries warrior. I'll race you to the Lincoln Room."

                The End on April Fools' Day, 2008