patrickmurfin

The McHenry County Peace Coalition is a successor to the former McHenry County Peace Group, which succumbed to exhaustion last year after nearly five year of fervent activity to advance the cause of peace and end the war in Iraq.  After taking a deep breath many of the tireless activists who so long kept up the good fight, united with other peace advocates and members of the Congregational Unitarian Church’s peace group and are back doing what they do best.

This Thursday members will roll out two, count them two, first class educational programs.  Take your pick.  You can’t go wrong.

Jeremy Schroeder, the executive director of the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty will be talking about the status of the death penalty moratorium, at a meeting hosted by the Coalition on February 12, 7:00 PM at the Congregational Unitarian Church, 221 Dean Street, Woodstock.

 

The Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty is a grassroots membership organization committed to educating the public about the flaws and injustices in the Illinois capital punishment system and promoting humane alternatives to the punitive death penalty system.

 

The program is free and open to the public.

 

For more information call the church at 815 338-0731.

Todd Culp, PhD

Meanwhile, down the road at McHenry County College, the Coalition will join forces with a new MCC Student Peace Action Network to revive the popular Current American Issues public forum series.

 

On Thursday, February 12 at 7 PM in Room B177C they will present The Road to Gaza:  How Did We Get Here?

 

Dr. Todd Culp will be the featured speaker.  Culp teaches History and Political Science at MCC and holds a PhD in Political Science with intensive study in political violence, terrorism, and insurgency. 

 

Culp’s work for reconciliation between the Israelis and the Palestinians includes developing and leading study groups throughout the Middle East where he joins local organizations working to bring Israelis and Palestinians together and creating enduring friendships.  He organized and raised funds for a construction project, leading a group of volunteer builders from the Rockford community to assist in building an interfaith college in January 2009.  While there he became an eyewitness to the devastating results of the on-going conflict. He will discuss the current situation and analyze the key events leading up to the Gaza War.

 

The program is free and open to the public

.

 

Could it be?  The pontificators think it’s just a bargaining ploy.  The neo-imperialists of the present maladministration are breaking out in hives and flop sweat.  Barack Obama must be smiling. The Iraqi government is threatening to show American and other international forces the door when the United Nations mandate expires at the end of the year.  That would cut the Gordian Knot and allow the new President a quick, clean Exit from the quagmire.

Here is what Leila Fadel and Mike Tharp reported for McClatchy Newspapers:

BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki raised the possibility that his country won't sign a status of forces agreement with the United States and will ask U.S. troops to go home when their U.N. mandate to be in Iraq expires at the end of the year.

Maliki made the comment after weeks of complaints from Shiite Muslim lawmakers that U.S. proposals that would govern a continued troop presence in Iraq would infringe on Iraq's sovereignty…

It’s Memorial Day in the sixth year of a misbegotten war.  Most of those yellow ribbon car magnets have long since disappeared.  The American flags that were ubiquitous on almost every house after 9/11 and again in the early days of the war are mostly gone, too.  There may be a mild irony that up and down Ridge Avenue, the residential street that runs along the side of my house, this house with its locally notorious anti-war resident, is the only home flying a flag. I got a new one Saturday.  I always keep on display from Memorial Day through Veteran’s Day.  I never wanted the jingoists to take my patriotism or my flag away.

The war and its casualties are hardly news now.  Four inch stories on page 3 or 4 are the norm now.  The pundits tell us Americans have “moved on” and are now concerned more by the price of gas and the collapsing economy.  The war has “lost traction” as a political issue in a hot Presidential contest.

Locally, the return of “our heroes” is regular news in the NORTHWEST HERALD.  Every week or so soldier returns home to McHenry County either for good or for a brief rest after a deployment in the war zone.  Each and everyone is met by the motorcycle riding members of the Patriot Guard and escorted home.  And each one gets a write-up with pictures.

But no body much wants to think about a war despised by 70% of the American people but which everyone seems powerless to end.

In the mean time thousands of young American men and women are dead or damaged.  And hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans.

For the third year, I am observing Memorial Day with this poem.  An edited version appeared in WE BUILD TEMPLES IN THE HEART.  What follows here is the restored original.

PICTURES, POPPIES AND STARS

A SONG OF GENERATIONS

We knew war.

Somewhere in every home a handsome young man peered from a tinted photograph,
       overseas cap at a jaunty angle,
             or the fifty mission crush,
                   or the crisp square white beanie of a gob,
       usually someone’s Dad in some other life,
       but sometimes a ghost frozen in time,
       caught in that picture like a fly in amber
       while bloody shreds were left draped on barbed wire
       ten feet from low water on an anonymous beach,
           or splattered on the glass of the ball turret
                 of a Mitchell bomber spiraling for a date
                 with a German potato field,
                       or bobbing in a sea of burning oil
                        naked and parboiled.

We knew pity.

The veterans in neat blue uniforms,
     sleeves pinned to shoulders, ears shot away,
          noses burned off, faces twitching,
               fistfuls of red paper poppies in one hand
                    shaking white cans for nickels with the other
                    on every street corner, May and November,
     and no decent man or woman passed
     without emptying pockets of change,
     twisting flowers into button holes
     without ever looking the peddler in the eye.

We knew death.

Inside scrapbooks, brittle pages and fading ink,
     kept far up in the closet behind hat boxes
          surrounded by last winters scarves and mittens,
               between leatherette boards tied by black laces,
               amid the ration coupons and V-mail, 
               postcards from exotic ports, Brownie snapshots, 
               campaign maps, and yellow clippings
     a small fringed flag, edged in red and blue,
          a gold star in the center.

In the neighborhood,
     we looted footlockers and duffel bags,
          saved our dimes for the Army/Navy Store,
           outfitted ourselves in helmet liners,
           webbed belts, canteens and mess kits,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               smatterings of cast off khaki and drab,
     and amid the prairie burrs and grasses,
          between the wild rose hedge and lilac caves,
               on top of the car port and in the window wells,
     every summer day we sorted glory from horror.

We knew war, and pity and death.
We thought.

And then, suddenly, it was our turn for real,
games and fantasy were over,
we had to make grown up choices.

Some went to war with swagger; some with tears
     some went to Canada, some to prison
          and some took another toke and shrugged
     in the safe cocoon of a high number.

We knew war and pity and death.

Now, my grandchildren, it’s your turn.

What do you know?
What will you do?

--Patrick Murfin

The folks at MoveOn.org asked blogers to share this video.  I’m more than happy to oblige.

The late, great Molly Ivins used to cite the Rule of Holes:  When you find yourself stuck in one, stop digging.  This simple bit of folk wisdom has escaped the Neo Con warlocks, the Dark Sith Lord Cheney, and the Resident.  Egged on by General Petraeus, he of the Douglas McArthur memorial hair cut and dazzling chest full of ribbons, GOP Presidential wannabe Senator John McCain continues to dig with gusto.  Not satisfied with the hole he’s in, he has announced an eagerness to dig a new one—talking up the administration dream of a preemptive war, presumably with Iran.

Some Americans are still under the delusion that McCain is some sort of maverick and a critic of the Bush war policy.  The only criticism the senator has consistently had of the war was that it wasn’t being pursued with adequate gusto and efficiency.  Pass on this MoveOn video clip to anyone you know who might be sharing that delusion.  Or to any one who tells you they will vote for McCain if their choice fails to win the Democratic Party nomination for President.

Is it too early for Democrats to start running against the leading Republican contender?  I don’t think so.

John McCain retains a certain appeal to independents and even some Democrats attracted to his image as a “straight talking” independent.  Certainly he would be the most formidable GOP candidate even if the Taliban faction of the party stays home and sulks.

McCain’s alleged independence is pretty thin.  He has been reliably conservative in his Senate votes on almost all issues.  He has strayed off the reservation on campaign finance reform, immigration, and lately he talks about global warming.  But that’s enough to drive the wing nuts foaming at the mouth crazy.  But their enmity is no excuse for embracing the Arizona Senator.

And on the big issue of the war McCain’s independence lies in being even more hawkish than the craziest Neo Con in Bushland.

Thanks to Robert Greenwald at Brave New Films, we have this reminder of the real McCain.  Share it with loved ones in danger of being taken in.

We welcome as guest blogger today a certain Negro minister some of you might recall.  The opinions expressed here were first delivered to an audience at NewYork City’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967.  They were so controversial at the time that many of America’s leading white liberals, here to for admirers of the preacher denounced him as un-American.  Condemnation in the editorial pages of the nation’s great newspapers was unanimous.  Many of his allies in the Civil Rights Movement despaired what they considered a loss of focus on their immediate goals. J. Edgar Hoover considered it simply confirmation that the preacher was, in fact, a Communist agent.

We believe that author would concur that much of the speech could profitably be read today by substituting the word Iraq for Vietnam.  It has been edited for length.

Beyond Vietnam
April 4, 1967. New York, N.Y.

...I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together, Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.
 

The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on.
 

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation’s history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements, and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.
 

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns, this query has often loomed large and loud: "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King?" "Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don’t mix," they say. "Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people?" they ask. And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment, or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. In the light of such tragic misunderstanding, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church—the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate—leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.

Thanks and a tip ‘o the hat to our reader Ashley Hoffman of the  Council for A Livable World.  She e-mailed me Monday with the Drums of War link and ask to post it on the blog.  Glad to oblige.  I am only sorry that being waaaay behind in my e-mail delayed the premier of the very first imbedded video ever to appear on Heretic, Rebel, a Thing to Flout.

There is scarcely a more important task at hand for all of us than preventing the next Bush/Cheney war.  Pass this along to folks you know.

I have been warning about the Bush Administration’s push toward a war with Iran almost as long as this blog has been in operation.  Sometimes I feel like the little boy who cried wolf.  But evidence mounts daily that despite the opposition of just about everyone The Shrub, the Dark Sith Lord Cheney and their minions are more determined than ever to launch yet another disastrous war.

The folks at the Council for a Livable World are trying to raise money to print this ad to counter a media blitz by the White House propaganda campaign to whip up support for another war.  Led,  as usual, by the ever snarling Cheney, this effort will including a front operation called, ironically Freedom Watch. The text of the ad is copied below.  A small version appears above.  If you care to contribute click here.

If You Like the War in Iraq, You’ll Love the War in Iran.

An ominous pattern of provocative words and acts from the White House points to a new war:

a “preventive” strike on Iran.

“All options are on the table,” says the Bush Administration. Does that include a nuclear

option? Yes, they have refused to rule out using nuclear weapons.

Nuclear or not, the fallout from this attack will be catastrophic. Iran is three times larger than

Iraq. It has vast resources and intense national pride. It can wreak havoc on oil markets.

It can retaliate against Israel or the Gulf States. In Iraq and Afghanistan, 175,000 U.S.

soldiers could be the victims of a surge of anger at America.

But doesn’t Iran refuse to talk? That is White House fiction. Two serious offers from the

Iranian leadership have been rejected out of hand by the White House.

No one wants a nuclear-armed Iran. The reality is that bombing Iran will likely strengthen the

hard-liners’ hand and ensure that Iran will one day become a nuclear state.

The American people want diplomacy, not another war. Four out of five Americans favor direct

talks with Iran.

Congress must make the White House listen to the people.

www.armscontrolcenter.org/iran

The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY e-mailed  me and asked if I could write a letter to the editor about the Resident’s plan for a 50 year or more deployment in IRAQ and the support it has been getting from across the field of imperial wann-a-bes known collectively as the REPUBLICAN presidential candidates.  I was glad to oblige.  Since I just had a missive printed in the NORTHWEST HERALD, my usual outlet for such letters, I sent this one to the DAILY HERALD.  I urge any of you to use the handy tool on the Party web site and send your own letters.

To the Editor--

Gee, it’s been so swell hanging around the Korean Peninsula for 50 plus years and waiting for a war to break out, that the President and his brain trust think it would be just peachy if we could do the same thing in Iraq. 

Never mind that there will be no “truce line” to separate us from our potential enemies.  They’ll be mixed up higgly-piggly with the local population just out side the gates of the massive bases this scheme envisions. 

Never mind that  there will be no government on the other side, not even one run by a crack-pot family dynasty a la North Korea, with which to negotiate if problems arise and things get dicey.

Never mind that that there likely will not even be an allied government that wants them to stay. Right now a majority of the Iraqi parliament wants to revoke the UN mandate under which the U.S. occupation is conducted and set an absolute deadline for our withdrawal from the country.

Never mind the overwhelming majority of the American people want this insanity over and done with NOW.

Senator John McCain says the President’s idea is just fine with him.  The other contenders for the Republican nomination, even those who stare at their shoes when the unpopular president is mentioned, agree.

Want to stop this?  Make sure a Democrat is elected our next president.  Senator Obama is my first choice, but any of the leading contenders would put the breaks on this bit of hubris in short order.

Patrick Murfin,

Crystal Lake, Illinois

 FIRST LT. W.M. MURFIN,  U.S. ARMY MEDICAL COPRS, LEYTE ISLAND, THE PHILLIPINES 1944 or ‘45

  
  
NICHOLAS JORDAN BAILEY  ON HIS 16TH BIRTHDAY  WITH MOM, CAROLYNNE LARSEN AND FATHER, CHRISTIAN (MICKEY) BAILEY .    

            Last year at this time I posted one of my poems in honor of MEMORIAL DAY.  At the risk of being redundant, I will post the same one again. 

Since last year about a thousand more GI’s have died in IRAQ and dozens in AFGAHNISATAN.  We don’t have a clear count on the maimed or injured and even less of an idea of how many have been emotionally and psychologically afflicted or how many are now ill or who will fall ill from environmental illnesses linked to their deployment.

            The carnage inflicted on the populations of both countries dwarf our own losses yet are hardly acknowledged or felt here.  Defenders of the war, when pressed, will argue that only a tiny percentage of the civilian losses are attributable to American arms.  The vast majority are victims of the unacknowledged civil wars that now rend both countries.  Yet the utter collapse of a once stable Iraq and its descent into fratricidal mayhem is the direct result of our feckless adventure in that country.  The blood is on our hands as much as on any SUNNI JIHADIST or SHIITE MILITIAMAN.

            This Memorial Day I try to hold them all, Yank and HAJJI—the current equivalent of GOOK, JAP, or KRAUT—alike, in my heart.

            I also have in mind my father, W.M. MURFIN.  He’s been gone now nearly 17 years.  He didn’t die in the war.  But WORLD WAR II was the central and defining event of his life.  An over-aged soldier, her served in the ARMY MEDICAL CORPS, first as the Top Kick of a U.S. field hospital attached to the British Army in North Africa chasing ERWIN ROMMEL’S AFRIKA KORPS out of EGYPT across the SAHARA all the way to TRIPOLI. 

            After returning to the States for Officer Candidate School, he was dispatched to the PACIFIC THEATER where he participated in the landings at LEYTE in the PHILLIPINES, GUAM, and OKINAWA.

            I also am keeping my grandson-in-residence in mind.  NICHOLAS BAILEY will turn 17 this summer.  Like a lot of young men he has had some trouble in school and doesn’t have a clear idea what he wants to do with his life.  He just got his first job at a local Italian Beef stand.  This summer he will get his driver’s license.  Next year he will graduate from high school.  He has spent a huge chunk of his adolescence playing violent video games and wrapped up in sword-and-sorcery fantasy.  He is just the sort of young guy recruiters salivate over.  He is already getting mail from the Army, Marine Corps and the Air Force.  He has already been to a recruiting office at least once while accompanying a friend who is enlisting in the Army on the promise that they will make him a fire fighter.  By this time next year Nick might have responded to the Siren call of military glory.  A year after that, if GEORGE W. gets his way, Nick could be eating dust and dodging IUD’S.

PICTURES, POPPIES AND STARS

A SONG OF GENERATIONS

We knew war.

Somewhere in every home a handsome young man peered from a tinted photograph,
       overseas cap at a jaunty angle,
             or the fifty mission crush,
                   or the crisp square white beanie of a gob,
       usually someone’s Dad in some other life,
       but sometimes a ghost frozen in time,
       caught in that picture like a fly in amber
       while bloody shreds were left draped on barbed wire
       ten feet from low water on an anonymous beach,
           or splattered on the glass of the ball turret
                 of a Mitchell bomber spiraling for a date
                 with a German potato field,
                       or bobbing in a sea of burning oil
                        naked and parboiled.

We knew pity.

The veterans in neat blue uniforms,
     sleeves pinned to shoulders, ears shot away,
          noses burned off, faces twitching,
               fistfuls of red paper poppies in one hand
                    shaking white cans for nickels with the other
                    on every street corner, May and November,
     and no decent man or woman passed
     without emptying pockets of change,
     twisting flowers into button holes
     without ever looking the peddler in the eye.

We knew death.

Inside scrapbooks, brittle pages and fading ink,
     kept far up in the closet behind hat boxes
          surrounded by last winters scarves and mittens,
          between leatherette boards tied by black laces,
          amid the ration coupons and V-mail,
          postcards from exotic ports, Brownie snapshots                                          campaign maps, and yellow clippings
     a small fringed flag, edged in red and blue,
          a gold star in the center.

  In the neighborhood,
     we looted footlockers and duffel bags,
          saved our dimes for the Army/Navy Store,
               outfitted ourselves in helmet liners,
               webbed belts, canteens and mess kits, smatterings of cast off khaki and drab,
     and amid the prairie burrs and grasses,
          between the wild rose hedge and lilac caves,
               on top of the car port and in the window wells,
     every summer day we sorted glory from horror.

We knew war, and pity and death.
We thought.

And then, suddenly, it was our turn for real,
games and fantasy were over,
we had to make grown up choices.

Some went to war with swagger, some with tears
     some went to Canada, some to prison
          and some took another                                                                                                                                                                   toke and shrugged
     in the safe cocoon of a high number.

We knew war and pity and death.

Now, my grandchildren, it’s your turn.

What do you know?
What will you do?

--Patrick Murfin

Tens of Thousands joined March on the Pentagon on Saturday.

            The fourth anniversary of the WAR IN IRAQ is being marked, one cannot say celebrated, with thousands of folks taking to the streets in protest.  Over the week-end resolute demonstrators braved the aftermath of an historic storm to pray in vigil outside the WHITE HOUSE, march on the PENTAGON, and take to the streets in cities from dozens of cities and towns from  NEW YORK, to LOS ANGELES   to PORTALND . 
            On Monday acts of civil disobedience resulted in arrests at the NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE, in SAN FRANCISCO, in  and other cities.

            Tonight (March 20) thousands are expected to gather in CHICAGO , including my friends from the McHENRY COUNTY PEACE GROUP , to march down MICHIGAN AVENUE to DAILEY PLAZA.  This march not only protests the war, it commemorates the mass arrests of protestors marching on the MAGNIFICENT MILE the night of the first full day of the war.

            All of this, and all I have to offer today is my keyboard, this blog and a letter to the editor to stop this war.  It is not enough, but it is what I can do.

            This morning I responded to an e-mail from MOVEON.ORG requesting that I send a letter to the editor in support of the DEMOCRATIC HOUSE RESOLUTION  to bring the war to a close.  They reported that 83% of their members endorsed the plan.  Even the few comments from members included indicates that most of their members will endorse the plan in lieu of stronger action, including a cut off of funding of the war and/or a withdrawal of the President’s “blank check” war making powers voted in the post 9/11 hysteria. 

            I know I am in this group.  I will strongly support more drastic Congressional action but feel that even this largely symbolic action by Congress is better than none and will lead to more comprehensive action in the future.

            Others strongly disagree.  The pressure from portions of the anti-war movement and from the left is intense.  Protestors have surrounded the HOME  and occupied OFFICE of SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI  .  She and other Congressional Democrats have been roundly denounced for not hanging tough for a cut off of war funds.  I have no problem with that.  Continued pressure from the left is good and will keep everyone honest and focused on ending this deadly war.

            I do take strong issue however to eat-our-own viciousness of some groups.  DEMOCRATS.COM savaged MoveOn.  In an e-mail alert I received yesterday they actually suggested that MoveOn members resign.  I can’t find this posted on their web site but BOB FETRIK’s lead blog stopped just short.  Other sites took up the howling.   This kind of  “You either agree with us 100% or your part of the enemy” crap couldn’t be better designed by KARL ROVE himself to keep us divided and powerless.

            So, at the risk of being denounced as a QUISLING , or having my home picketed, I sent the following letter to the NORTHWEST HERALD.

To the Editor—

Our country marked a sad anniversary when it slipped into the fifth year of the reckless War in Iraq.  This week the House of Representatives will take up a resolution widely supported by the American people. 

This proposal, backed by House Democrats and thoughtful Republicans, will force the administration to certify that our troops have the training and equipment that they need and which have been neglected by the Defense Department.  It calls on the Iraqi government to meet benchmarks to be able to independently govern.  And most critically, it sets a date certain to end deployment and bring our troops home.

This does not go as far as many would prefer, but it reflects a broad consensus.

Yet an intractable president has threatened to veto this bill or any other that puts any restrictions what so ever on his power to unilaterally order American forces to march lemming-like over the cliff to futile disaster.

The American people need to make their voices heard on this matter.   Support the authority of Congress.  Support the House resolution and similar attempts to stop the war in the Senate.  Remind the President that he is the servant of the people, not our master.

Patrick Murfin,

Crystal Lake.

This may not be enough, but at least it is something.  Peace!

HERETIC, REBEL, A THING TO FLOUT has long been concerned with the Bush maladministration’s apparent rush to war with Iran.  See the February 8th posting URGENT ALERT--US TARGETING IRAN.  Since that article was posted, more and more evidence of determination to launch another ill advised war has piled up.  MOVEON.ORG is offering an easy way to make your voice heard.  Consider supporting their advertising appeal to Congress.

A Message from MoveOn.Org

In a news conference last weekend, Vice President Cheney inched closer to war with Iran.

Does this feel like déjà vu to you? Experts agree that escalating the war into Iran will make things worse, and Congress has the constitutional power to stop the White House. But they need to hear from all of us that Americans don't want a widening war—and we expect them to do something about it.

So, we've prepared an ad to send a simple clear message to Congress, and we need your help to make sure it gets into national newspapers. We need to act now before it's too late. Can you chip in? To see the ad and contribute, click here:

MOVEON.ORG DONATE TO SUPPORT IRAN AD.

     

CAROLYN QUINN          JULIA WARD HOWE

CAROLYN QUINN was also kind enough to share this letter she recently sent to Illinois Senators Barack Obama and Dick Durbin.

 I don’t think I have ever seen this sentiment expressed better. It reminded me of the original MOTHER’S DAY.  That day was organized by Julia Ward Howe.  She knew about war, too.

                A militant abolitionist, she penned the words to the BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC, to which’s cadence a generation of young men marched to their death in the CIVIL WAR.  She spent the rest of her long life as a champion of many causes and of social justice.  But having seen first hand the dreadful slaughter of war—even a just war in a righteous cause—she dedicated her greatest energies in preventing war.

                The outbreak of the FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR in 1870 caused her to attempt to mobilize women around the world for peace.  She called for June 10th to be celebrated annually as MOTHER’S PEACE DAY.  Her proclamation of the day, characteristically in verse went as follows: 

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Dear Senator:

This isn’t just about the pain and heartache of losing a son, although the pain is infinite.  This isn’t just about imagining a grandchild that arms will never hold, or books that will never be written, it is also about an imagining a world without the heroes that could have maybe solved the problems of the masses.  Or one who could have been a good and decent person. We need those heroes back home.  Desperately.  

The military arm of our nation insisted they need my son even more.  They continue to require still more of our sons. 

I can remember my stepfather who raised me giving me the look along with the comment “Money doesn’t fall from trees, you know.”  Today I ask that you give your fellow senators the look and see if they know where all those brave young men come from.  They don't fall from trees, obviously.  They don’t come from some unknown place; they are FORMED.

They are formed on the potter's wheel of mothers who teach their sons to respect life and to be respectful. To be civil and use their manners. They are fired in the kiln of fathers who demand that their sons learn what it means to be honorable and to live a life of integrity. They are glazed by communities, where the colors of heroism and courage are the atmospheric paint.

And once they have been so formed they are precious treasures beyond any other.

The uncommonly heroic and courageous, honorable and reliable, are just the sort who will step up to the plate in times of crises or war. They WANT to defend their mother country. They WANT to be heroes. They WANT to demonstrate to themselves and their fathers and to the world all around, that whatever frightening circumstances can be arranged, will not daunt, and absolutely cannot measure against the power of love in their hearts. And so they give of themselves without limits. They choose to protect their band of brothers in the desert or the swamp or the skies on fire - They CHOOSE to face intense danger rather than melt back into unformed clay without principal.

They are the investment of our lives; they are the lifeblood of our truest hopes and dreams. They represent our best effort to send our best selves into the best future we can imagine.

And it is imperative that we not squander them, not a one.

At what cost do we send our biggest and best investment of men good and true, men of daring courage into wars across the ocean?

We mothers must tell you that these, our most precious treasures, can NEVER be replaced, and they cannot possibly be measured against dollars or other resources. We aren't particularly moved about the billions spent on the war, in comparison to the dread of losing our sons. Trillions of dollars means less than a penny compared to the cosmic pain of losing our sons. Loss comes in so many packages.

We want our sons back whole - physically, mentally and emotionally whole. We want to see their eyes still ablaze with the fire of strong, loving hearts that are fearless and hopeful.

This does not mean that we are completely unwilling to sacrifice even a son for the greater good of humanity, but you better believe it means that we are unwilling to sacrifice ANYBODY's son or ANYBODY'S father for profit or oil or greed or vengeance.

But I said this wasn’t going to be just about a mother’s pain.  It is also about protecting our absolutely greatest resource: our people and our youth. For they are our most precious national treasures. 

What will tomorrow’s generation look like if we spend our most heroic sons of today in a “dumb” war?    Where will our daughters find men who know how to honor and respect them if we throw away our best and bravest? Where will we as a country be if we ourselves do not honor and respect these good men and bring them home right now?

Carolyn Quinn

Crystal Lake, Illinois

PS.  I am not a gold star mom.  My son served six years as a Navy “Nuke” and returned home late last fall.  Of course we are beyond glad to have our Collin back home with us.  I want to tell you what he did when he got home.  He signed up to be an election judge and served in that capacity November 7^th, 2006 – which was also his first day back to being an official civilian.  I just want to make it clear that those who would say we are not patriots are either not listening, or they are not understanding what is real.   I thank you for taking the time to listen, and more importantly for “getting it.” 

(Photo by MARY MARGARET MAULE)

CAROLYN QUINN, the Secretary of the McHENRY COUNTY DEMOCRATIC PARTY, was one of a carload of local Dems who drove down to Springfield this morning to hear BARACK OBAMA announce his candidacy for President of the United States at the historic OLD STATE CAPITAL—the building where Abraham Lincoln served in the state legislature, delivered his HOUSE DIVIDED speech, debated Stephen Douglas, and after a bitter war and martyrdom was laid in State for his friends and neighbors.  I asked Carolyn--who shares the honor with Virginia Red of being one of the only two guest contributors on this blog—to be our Special Correspondent at the historic event.  She complied with her usual enthusiasm, good eye for detail, and serious writing chops. 

Postcard perfect clear sky:

Left my camera bag, purse and backpack in the car on purpose to have less stuff to worry about.  Did bring THE AUDACITY OF HOPE and today’s copy of the SPRINGFIELD JOURNAL with Barack all over the front page.  I had planned to get them both autographed.

Wicked cold.  Where you think twice about taking in the next breath because the frigid gases seem downright invasive. 

A Mark Twain impersonator passed by on the sidewalk as we approached the OLD STATE HOUSE - and of course Abe Lincoln.  Both looked real enough.  A couple kids hawking tee shirts and buttons (but I didn’t buy any because the money wasn’t going to the Obama campaign – plus I didn’t have my purse.)

Long lines at 8:30 AM to enter the courtyard area, and despite the biting cold, spirits were incredibly high.  Nobody jostled for a better place in line.  We met one another in line.  I shook many mittened hands this morning.  People of different ages, backgrounds, races, regions, were all pleasant and of a single group spirit.  Today we shared a common hope.  To be able to make the difference in changing government to be more responsive to ordinary peoples’ lives.  Like our own.  And we hope this guy is the one to help us make it happen.  Townies were proud to host the announcement of Obama’s presidential bid.  Way proud.  Travelers were just thrilled to be there and shared how far they had come – how early they had arisen – with the same sense of pride.  What we all shared was a personal investment in the hope that we can reclaim America.  Debbie Ross from Lincoln, Illinois sang the STAR SPANGLED BANNER, and my friend Sam said she is the same woman who sang at his wedding.

He offered himself up as a vehicle today.  Why do we hope Barack is the one to help make us more able to affect change in the overall political climate?  All along he has been listening to the stories of ordinary people.  Listening carefully enough to remember our stories and pass them on.  To tie the stories together with a meaningful thread of who we are, what our challenges are, and how we try so hard against so many obstacles.  He heard people who are like me, it seems, because when he tells their stories, it sounds like he is telling my story and getting the gist of why I work so hard to keep my head afloat in an economy that doesn’t appear to put much value on my hard work.  He gets the gist of how I work so hard, what the challenges are like, and the kinds of things our government could do that would make me feel more like I was getting a decent shake at the American dream. 

But that’s not all.  He has spoken against the war in Iraq all along.  Today he proposed a date by which we should have our military out of there.  The crowd was quiet.  Not me.  I was whooping and hollering.  But I was one of ten thousand, and went unnoticed except by the people right around me.  And then he described how we must take care of all our returning vets, and the entire crowd was whooping and hollering.  He proposed that we bring unions back into power enough to take care of laborers.  He proposed that we give teachers the resources and money they deserve.  He proposed that we make college education more affordable, and there was an ocean of approval moving all around the lawn.  The twenty-somethings and the fifty-somethings are in complete agreement about this one!  And he spoke to us as a generation.  Not separate generations in clusters; but as though we in the audience were all one generation:  the generation who can step up to the plate, roll up our sleeves and fix what’s wrong with today’s government.  Dad’s held little kids up on their shoulders to see the sight.  We felt a part of history at that moment.  Not because of the event that happened, but because of the shared vision of events to come, events that we believe will come because of our commitment, our work ethic, our diversified talents, and our connection to this gangly attorney who is determined to do things differently if we choose to elect him. 

And it isn’t just that he seems so sincere when he flashes that brilliant smile, and it isn’t just that he is a powerful speaker, and it isn’t just that he speaks to us of our own stories.  The guy’s an expert on Constitutional Law who said that the battle we need to fight is making Washington DC work differently.  This at a time when the war abroad is an incredible, unbearable travesty and I get the feeling we are being distracted from an wicked attempt to undermine our Constitution.  The job description of president is to uphold the constitution. Would it be good for our next president to be a Constitutional expert?  I just don’t get why there’s any question of nominating anyone else.  This is to me as clear as a postcard perfect clear sky day at 3 degrees Fahrenheit.  Barack is my guy.  There is not much I would change about today’s rally if I could.  It would have been nice to get those autographs, though.

--CAROLYN QUINN

             While the peace movement focuses on preventing the Resident’s escalation-cum-surge in Iraq and the Senate dithers over the mildest of non-binding resolutions against it, the administration is reported to be locked into an attack on Iran, perhaps as early as the end of the month.

            Such a move is George W.’s only option to “change the conversation” in America from his failed Iraq policy, his assault on constitutional rights, and the dangerous revelations that seem to be spinning out from the Scooter Libby trial.  The Dark Sith Lord Cheney has assured him that opening hostilities with Iran will rally the American people to him and stymie a timid Democratic Congress from “acting against the troops under fire.”  As an added bonus it could even open the door to sweeping new domestic restrictions on privacy, speech, and assembly.  It’s a dangerous gamble, but one which a president with messianic delusions, a maliciously ambitious power-behind-the-throne, and their devoted army on Neo-Con Orcs are willing to make.

            The game has been afoot for some time.  It was implied in the original conception of a never-ending “War on Terror” with multiple battlefields.  Iran was identified from the beginning as one of the “Axis of Evil.”  But the original Neo-Con conception envisioned an easy victory in Iraq transforming that country into a permanent forward military base from which to dominate the Middle-East and the southern tier of former Soviet republics. 

While the original simple RISK strategy of being able to pick off enemies one by one by massing armies on their boarders has long been rendered obsolete, Iran never dropped off of the eventual target list. 

For a while the possibility that a new, moderate government might take power in Iran and seek a diplomatic accommodation with the West, threatened these ambitions.  But by relentlessly impugning Iranian national pride, by refusing to enter into any meaningful negotiations directly and by interfering with European efforts, the administration was able to assure the triumph of hardliners over pro-western moderates in the last Iranian presidential election.

And what a special gift MAHMOUND AHMADINEJAD has been.  This repellent little ideologue, reputed to be one of the architects of the 1979 HOSTAGE CRISIS, is a strutting thug and vicious anti-Semite Holocaust denier who has been eager to push his confrontation with the West over the development a possible nuclear weapons to the brink.  The Vice President could not have wished for a better partner in his dance of death.

Tensions over Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been mounting for two years as the US has adroitly maneuvered the Europeans and the United Nations into supporting its demands for total Iranian surrender on the issue.  Each threat of diplomatic condemnation or economic sanctions by the West has brought back more belligerence from Ahmadinejad.  Not only has he announce repeatedly that Iran has made this or that step toward  manufacture of possible arms grade plutonium, he has publicly tested a range of sophisticated rockets and missiles—thanks to North Korean technology—capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.

Despite the fact that international arms experts believe that Ahmadinejad’s bark is ten times worse than his bite—that the Iranians are years away from assembling a usable nuclear arsenal—the  American administration has been able to relentlessly hype the dangers of “weapons of mass destruction” in an eerie parallel to the charges leading to the Iraq debacle.  And the Iranian President’s bluster has only lent a credibility to the charges that Bush would have otherwise already forfeited.

Meanwhile the Iraq disaster has opened the door to Iranian ambitions in that country.  It had long supported the Shiite majority against its old Suni/Baathist enemy.  It has been a long term dream of the ruling Iranian clerics to either draw Iraq’s eastern Shiite provinces into a new Greater Iran or if the local Shiite Arabs demurred from Persian domination, at least a compliant satellite state.   The turmoil in Iraq unleashed by the American invasion ultimately led to the acsension of Iranian Shii’a allies to dominance of an American sponsored “democratic government” and the ensuing undeclared civil war.

Long complaining about Iranian meddling in Iraq, Bush has recently upped the rhetoric on that front as well.  American troops invaded an Iranian Consulate in the Kurdish north and arrested 5 diplomats.  Subsequently a policy of “arresting or killing” any Iranian agents found in Iraq “abetting the terrorists” was announced.   Some even suspect that a recent highly publicized ambush which killed five Americans GIs (including one outspoken war critic), might have been a covert operation meant to be blamed on Iran.

Those are the background conditions on which Bush and company plan to justify war.  The actual military preparations have been on going for some time and Pentagon sources, alarmed at the rush to disastrous war, have been leaking warnings that the plans are nearly complete and that execution of them can be expected at any time.          

It was long assumed that the US would let the Israelis, who greatly fear Iranian nuclear ambitions, conduct a preemptory attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.  But those facilities are super-hardened, buried under hundreds of feet of reinforced concrete and widely disbursed over the mountainous nation.  Military experts believe that Israel tested some of America’s newest and most powerful “bunker busting” bombs and technology against hardened Hezbollah sites in their summer war in southern Lebanon.  But Hezbollah troops survived that bombardment and emerged to engage Israeli troops in bloody combat (see the archives from the August 30th entry LUNDY'S LANE AND LEBANNON--"BY GOD REGULARS!" )  From that point on it was apparent that a successful Israeli strike in Iran would require nuclear weapons, American super-jumbo DAISY CUTTER (and their even larger, newer kin) bunker busters not yet transferred to Israel, or direct American participation in the attack.

Meanwhile the U.S. military has been going beyond the planning phase to pre-positioning of forces.  Naval power in the Persian Gulf has been boosted.  A second full aircraft carrier battle group is nearing the gulf as we speak.  Heavy bombers—both trusty old B-52s and newer B-1Bs and B-2s—based in the US and the Indian Ocean Island of DIEGO GARCIA have been placed on alert and have run test long distance missions.  The Defense Minister of a former Eastern block nation last week let it slip that air bases in his country have been cleared for use in action against Iran—important because bases in Germany, Turkey and other NATO states are almost surely will be unavailable for an offensive war on Iran.

The plan now seems to be to allow Israel to strike first, with American support.  This counts on the Iranians to strike back against American forces in the area.  They are known to have dug in numerous anti-ship missiles capable of striking and sinking American ships in the Gulf.  These are the decedents of the EXOCET class of missiles which sank a British cruiser during the FAULKANDS WAR.          Although that attack was launched from an Argentine jet, the Iranian missiles are hidden in caves and bunkers along the length of the Persian Gulf and are quite capable of hitting ships within it.  It is not inconceivable that US ships could purposefully be placed as inviting targets with the hope that incoming missiles could be shot down.  If one was hit and destroyed, however, it would only magnify the excuse to fire back and become a REMEMBER THE MAINE rallying cry for the war at home.  Those who think this is a far fetched scenario have forgotten the documented case of the attack of the USS  MADOXX  and the resultant GULF OF TONKIN RESOLUTION.

Other scenarios involve some Iranian provocation in Iraq (or an act that can be plausibly blamed on them), or, better yet some act of domestic terrorism that can be tied (however tenuously) to the Ayatollahs.

The administration seems to be under the delusion that war against Iran can be fought mainly with air and naval forces with perhaps peripheral engagement by troops in Iraq and Afganistan confronting Shii’a uprisings there in support of Iran.

Less deluded observes don’t believe it for a moment.  War against Iran would almost surely become regional, if not global.  Iran probably has the power, as it has long claimed, to close the Persian Gulf to shipping and damage petroleum instillations in Saudi Arabia the Gulf States causing an instant international energy crisis and a crippling attack on Western economies.

Syria, in a defensive alliance with Iran would surely be drawn in.  Although that might be to the liking of the Neo-Cons who always aimed to get to Syria sooner or later, the last thing the US military wants or needs is yet another war front.  In addition Hezbollah forces in Lebanon would rise against the shaky government there and launch attacks on Israel.  Shiite minorities throughout the Gulf would be inflamed against “moderate” Suni states.

If Iraqi based Kurds take advantage of the opportunity to launch a “war of liberation” for the Iranian ruled cousins—and they are already training to do so—the crisis could spread even to NATO ally Turkey, which has long battled Kurdish separatists and has vowed never to allow the establishment of a Kurdish state.  That could drive moderate (and militarily powerful) Turkey into the arms of Jihadist Islam.

In addition, other international powers could be drawn in.  China depends on Iran for a significant portion of its oil supplies.  North Korea, already a de-facto ally providing technical support to Iranian rocket forces, and feeling that it is inevitably the next target of American aggression, could launch its long feared attack on the South.  Even resurgent Russia might be tempted to enter the fray directly or indirectly if it seems possible to eliminate the United States as super power.

However it unfolds, observers inside and outside the military are becoming convinced that the Resident and company are committed to action soon.

Only the most dramatic action may now be able to avert disaster.  The Peace Movement needs to re-focus its attention to stopping the next war.  Congress must act now to explicitly deny the Resident the authority to launch operations against Iran, including a refusal to authorize any funds for the adventure.  Bush and company must not be allowed to argue that Congress has ceded its war making authority to the Administration in this instance under the broad authorization of a “War on Terror.” PEACE ACTION, among other groups has launched a petition to Congress.  UNITED FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE  has compiled articles and links with which an activist can arm herself. 

But the time for petitions grows short.  The anti-war movement and all of the allies it can muster must take to the streets NOW.

The clock is ticking.  Tomorrow may be too late.

            Those of us who touch on politics in our blogs are required by law, under pain of exile to that land where the only communications tools are fat, soft lead pencils and wide ruled Big Chief School Tablets, to expound on the Resident’s State of the Union Address.  I was dutifully on my way to fulfilling this solemn obligation Tuesday night when I was mugged by an unwelcome ad (see my last post.)

            Now, when everyone else has moved on to the condition of Scooter Libby’s toenail fungus which caused such a great distraction that he forgot that high ranking CIA spooks had spilled the beans to him about Joe Wilson’s wife’s job (phew!), I am ready to fulfill my obligation.  Nothing less could be expected from the NUMBER 1 DEMOCRATIC/UU/PEACENIC/PRO-LABOR/POETRY BLOG IN McHENRY COUNTY, ILLINOIS (according to some unsubstantiated rumors.)

            First off, let me come clean.  I did not actually see the State of the Union (SOTU to inside the beltway hipsters.)  I was at work, as usual for a Tuesday night, behind the register of a Crystal Lake gas station.  I had my radio—yes just about the same kind of transistor radio we all had in 1965—tuned in to an appropriate AM news station.  Between customers and chores I strained to hear most of what George W. had to say, fawning commentary by former senator and acting stud Fred Thompson, and Senator Jim Webb’s Democratic Party Response.  So I was out of the game of assessing Nancy Pelosi’s wardrobe, keeping the exact count of  who leapt their feet to applaud at exactly what statements,  trying to catch Congress people snoring in their seats, or counting sneers and smirks on Dick Cheney’s face. 

I admit that I could have gone to any number of online sources when I got home and watched the whole thing unfold in front of my very eyes as if for the fist time.  But, frankly, I hadn’t the stomach for it.  I would rather have volunteered for un-anesthetized fingernail extraction by a drunken hippo vet .

            Listening on the radio, the technological equivalent of a wood burning steam locomotive, I can say for sure that George W. Bush is no Franklin Roosevelt.  Hell, he isn’t even a Senator Beauregard Claghorn.  He might be, on a good day, a passable Mortimer Snerd.  But in this performance he did not, to my memory, utter any of the infamous Bushisms that have become his trade mark or engage in any lying so specific that he is apt to get nailed as Pinocchio (as in the famous 16 words) by some disgruntled Ambassador.  Instead, the lies permeated the whole speech kind of like a low grade fever—you know it’s there, but it isn’t worth the energy to do anything about.

            I’ll dispose of the second part of the speech first.  It can be summed up thusly:  Everyone knew what he was going to say.  Nobody wanted to hear it.  Not one mind in America changed, save that of 12 year old Chester “Chetster” Dinglebottom of Muncie, Indiana.  He was moved because the X-Box was broken and he had to watch the speech with his parents.  “You mean there is a war or something going on?” he asked.  When told there was, he registered his strong support for the president, “Coooool Dude!”

            Senator Webb later casually demolished the Resident’s feeble appeal for one more do-over as if he were scraping gum off of his shoe. ‘Nuff said on that topic.

            So let’s take a look at the first half of the speech, the one which the op-ed pundits assured us was meant to “reach out to the Democrats now in power,” and “outlined areas of possible cooperation.”  Well, its true that he outlined a short laundry list is issues dear to Democrats—and to the American public, for that matter.  What is not true is that he offered any kind of concrete programs that were either acceptable on their face or were not shams covering his usual corporate smash and grab agenda. 

            Only on immigration is there the remotest chance of reaching an agreement with the Democrats, who generally favor some kind of accommodation for the millions of un-documented immigrants now in residence.  On the last go-around, compromise immigration reform passed in the Senate was shot down by the nativist, mow-‘em-down-with-machine-guns-at-the-boarder House Republicans.  But even here his hopes are dimmed because his interest is in providing a steady stream of cheap labor to his corporate pals, while most Democrats are looking for a humane way to include established, hard working families in the American Dream without giving a free hand to the oligarchs in undermining American wages.

            George W’s approach to health care mirrored the “Blue Sky Initiative” for air pollution—a dodge using right sounding buzz words to cover for a nearly polar opposite policy.  Bush’s sketchily drawn health care plan is based largely—surprise!—on “tax relief” proposals.  He resurrects raising the upper limits on “Health Savings Accounts,” another notorious tax dodge for this favored richest 2%. 

Then he proposes a confusing array of tax deductions to “encourage” un-covered Americans to buy private health coverage.  But to pay for that he (althought not described in the SOTU) would count “gold plated” traditional fee-for service health plans above a certain level and provided by employers as taxable income.  The trouble is that many elderly, sick, and high risk individuals would suddenly find this essential, but expensive benefit taxed.  Many would have no choice but to drop coverage.  And many employers would be encouraged to drop health care benefits. 

Bush also offered assistance to states trying to create their own wider systems of health care coverage—but only to those state who would do so by underwriting purchase of private insurance.  States opting for some sort of single payer plan would get nothing and would probably loose huge chunks of currently available Federal health care funding.  In short, the President is not advocating making health care easily available and affordable.  He wants to create a gigantic boondoggle for the insurance industry. 

As a sop to the doctors, who despise insurance companies but hate malpractice lawyers just a tad more, he trotted out the familiar call for caps on malpractice settlements and shifting to a looser-pays-all system that would bar most folks of modest means from ever daring to sue.

            The President trotted out, as he has done before, the need for energy self-sufficiency.  Generally this has been an excuse to turn over all petroleum assets to the major oil companies as cheaply as possible with the fewest restrictions on one hand, while showering them with massive “tax incentives” to do what they were going to do anyway.  This time he dressed it up with suggestions that he—and he really, really means it this time “cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die”—seriously wants to subsidize research and development of alternative of alternative fuels and—gasp!—even agrees to new higher fuel efficiency requirements for passenger cars.  At the same time, however, he will balm the pain of his old oil buddies buying enough crude from them to double the size of the Strategic Reserves—a purchase sure to keep demand high and prices up.

            As an after thought he allowed that energy conservations measures might also affect “global climate change.”  This sent many commentators into state of rapturous praise.  They believed that he had finally reversed himself and agree that, yes there really is “global warming”, Virginia.  Only the keen of ear and the sharp of intellect picked up that “global climate change” is not the same as “global warming.”  The latter is fraught with implications that is caused by human activity on the planet and that it might be ameliorated or even reversed by concerted action and major life-style changes.  “Global climate change,” on the other hand, infers natural rhythms, perhaps ordained by God himself, over which mere mortals have no control.  Translation:  don’t expect any policy change from this administration.

            I could go on, but you get the picture. 

            My fellow Americans, the State of the Union is bad and sliding to horrible.  It will remain so as long as the current mob of thieves, thugs, and theocrats retains a shred of political authority. Oh-my-God! Save the People and bless the United States of America.

First Sgt. Charles Monroe King

Kira Wolf at grave of LCpl. Colin Wolfe

Major Sullivan Ballou

As the last day of 2006 slunk away, misery like the slime trail of a garden slug strung out behind it, a fresh faced Texan, Spc. Dustin R. Donica, was killed by small arms fire somewhere in Baghdad.  He became, officially, the 3000th American combat death in Iraq.

The ironic tidiness of the event—milestone set on milestone—belies the gruesome tragedy it reveals.

In response, thousands of war opponents unleashed quiet vigils across the country on New Years Day.  Yet no matter how sincerely they grieved, Donica was just a convenient digit, a faceless cipher, a symbol.  Some where in Texas anguish ripped at hearts, banshee wails pierced the darkness.  No flickering memorial candle on some distant square or empty boots placed just so in some public grid, could stand for him.

The season has come again to take notice of those lives, so carelessly dealt away.  Just yesterday two of America’s newspapers of record published heart rending accounts.

WASHINGTON POST staff writer Sandhya Somashekhar chronicled the tale of 19 year old Kira Wolf  who comes daily to Arlington National Cemetery to lay by the grave of her sweet heart, L.Cpl. Colin Wolfe in Cold Ground for a Summer Love.

The same day a NEW YORK TIMES editor, Dana Canady related the extraordinary gift that her fiancé, First Sgt. Charles Monroe King, left their infant son Jordon—a two hundred page journal filled with details of his life, hopes for the future and advice for the infant.  From a Father to a Son evokes the tender adieu of another soldier who for saw his own death—the famous Civil War letter of Sullivan Ballou.

Both are well worth reading as we struggle to remember not just the flesh and blood soldiers we have lost, but the countless lives scarred by their loss.

As a nation, we remain divided over the war.  Daily more and more join those who from the beginning thought it a reckless tragedy.  Others, naturally including many—but my no means all—of the families of those lost and of the soldiers who have sacrificed there, fervently avow a higher and just cause worthy of the sacrifice.  Sometimes we gape at each other over that gulf each in disbelief that other can be so horribly wrong. 

But in the quiet hours of the borning year let those dead unite us for a moment in awe and admiration.

I am reminded of the final scene in the old film of James Mitchner’s  BRIDGES AT TOKO-RI.  On the pitching bridge of an aircraft carrier, an admiral (Fredrick March) hears the news of the death of one of his pilots (William Holden), who had been at best a reluctant warrior.  “Where do we find such men?” he whispers in wonder.  Where indeed.

Iraq deteriorates daily.  An election and poll after wretched poll have clearly shown that the people of this country have turned against the enterprise and those who foisted it upon them.  Even the neo-con architects of the disaster  try to wash their hands of it and point fingers of blame toward the same Moron-in-Chief  that they did so much to puff up and to Dandy Don, whose heralded management skills now seem hardly up to keeping the last Foto Mat Booth open.  Gray beard warlocks like Henry Kissinger pronounce the final verdict of failure.  And on the ground Iraqis die in daily bloodbaths that talking heads numbingly predict may soon slide into “real” civil war.   Americans die, too, in meaningless sacrifice to stubbornness and vanity.  The Army and Marine Corps, National Guard and the Reserve, are nearly drained and shattered.

So what else is new.

Much earlier in the war, when  blood ran in manageable rivulets in the gutter and had not yet saturated the ground to the bed rock, I wrote a poem which stands today.  The occasion was the unseemly, fly-by night evacuation of  Paul Bremer, “Administrator” of Iraq and the alleged assumption of power by something called the “Iraqi Provisional Authority.”  The words I put in Bremer’s mouth could today be said by any desperate perpetrator of this awful war.

BYE BYE BAGHDAD

Oh, what glory there should have been!

            What herald trumpets in gilded flourish

            should have proclaimed,

            what dressed ranks of might in splendor

            should have processed in measured dignity,

            what sleek and fleet air armadas

            should have shattered heaven in their salute,

            what Princes of the New Imperium

            should have strutted before an astonished world,

            what Hosannas sung as He, wrapped in purple,

            should have deigned wave His hand,

            and what cringing minions

            should have crept to kneel before Him,

                        pledging fealty, and better, oil,

                        in exchange for the blessings of fiefdom!

Yet these wretched sand niggers never got the memo.

            They failed to be appreciative of our sacrifices

            on behalf of grand ambition for an ordered world

            safe alike for Halliburton, Exxon/Mobile, and Franklin Graham,

            in cheeky ingratitude bit the hand that fed

            the satraps put in place for them, after all,

            refused to bow before our manifest Goodness,

            as if we had not told them over and over

            just how fortunate they were.

Can you believe they want to kill Us?   

            Well, not us exactly, not Us who live to rule,

            but those brave boys and girls who we call to our service,

            the sons and daughters of the irrelevant Them,

            who had nothing better to do with their lives anyway

            but bleed for the greater glory of Us!

The ungrateful the fickle folks back home desert us!

            Did we not offer our gleaming sword and shield

            to defend them from swarthy menace,

            did we not carry the mangled bodies of New York,

                        Washington,

                                    and Pennsylvania’s unsuspecting field

            before them, beating our chests and pledging vengeance.

            What more could they want?

A simple roadside bomb here, beheading there unmans them.

It leaves them trembling and unwilling,

asking craven questions of our majesty,

assuming they have some kind of voice

when our manifest brilliance should have

swept aside mere doubts

and hearty patriotism silenced traitors.

And so, on a dusty hell hot day in June

            As bombs and bullets punctuate our urgency

            we must call a furtive meeting,

            toss the hot potato to who ever will catch it,

            then run like hell to the first fast plane

            that will take us out of here.

So long, Suckers.

In honor of the 5th  anniversary of the 9/11 horror, I thought I would resurrect the poem I wrote on the first anniversary.  I had promised to say something at a memorial vigil that the McHenry County Peace Group planned for Woodstock Square.  I had wrestled with it for over a week, but could not come up with anything that did not seem obvious, maudlin, or hackneyed.  And the horror of that day was already being tainted by the cynical manipulations of the administration. 

I was still working as an elementary school custodian in Cary.  After work, I hopped on a train to Woodstock, still unsure of what to say.  On the back of a flyer advertising a local fall festival, I began scribbling notes.  When I got off the train I had a poem to read.

It was included in my 2004 collection WE BUILD TEMPLES IN THE HEART, published by Skinner House Books (available from the UUA Bookstore.)  My editor made me change the title, fearing it was too political attack on the President.  I have restored the original title and am including it in the manuscript I am preparing of anti-war and “political” poems.

Once again, in memory of that awful day, here it is.

THE DEAD OF 9/11 LEAVE A MESSAGE ON GEORGE W.’S VOICE MAIL

The Dead cry out—

It is not lonely here!

            They come by the scores

                        and by the thousands

                        every day,

                        as they have always come,

                        each arrival here

                        a wrenching loss below.

            They come as they have always come,

                        each death the completion of a journey,

                        the closing of a hoop of life.

            And we welcome each of them.

But we are not lonely here.

            We do not wander silent corridors

                        our footsteps echoing,

                        yearning for a voice.

            We are not lonely

                        for we are the Dead

                        and we are everywhere

                        united in that last breath

                        and in eternity.

But You—

You make haste to fill the unfillable,

            to send us more,

            many more,

            out of their own time

            as we were out of ours,

            yanked here in violence and hatred.

Let them be.

They will come in their own time.

We who know death

            do not cry out for revenge.

We are not lonely here.

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            That great American Will Rogers once said, “I only know what I read in the papers.”  If he were alive today, he might add “or on the internet.”  This morning the agitated electrons on my monitor glowed out the news “Abu Musab al Zarqawi is Dead.”

            It’s not the first time I have read those words.  Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq and America’s most wanted terrorist now that we have evidently decided that Osama Bin Ladin  doesn’t matter much after all, has been declared dead more often than the Democratic Party—no mean feat. But Zarqawi always turned up again able to taunt the U.S. with the words of Mark Twain:  “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

            This time, however, there apparently is a body, fingerprints, witnesses, and even an acknowledgement welcoming the glorious martyrdom of their leader by someone reputing to speak for al-Qaida.  This time I guess we will have to believe it.  He was apparently blown up by an American bombing attack on an isolated hide out.  Several others were also killed, inevitably described as his “Top Lieutenants.”

            The cheers going up from the White House, where the President has been desperate for good news out of Iraq and another opportunity to announce that we have “turned the tide” there, reverberate across the land.  Karl Rove must be whispering in George W.’s ear that Zarqawi must be good for an up-tic in his poll numbers, maybe by as much as 5 points.  Of course those improved numbers would still leave him so far below the surface of the water that sunlight hardly penetrates.  But anything is better than nothing.

            In fact, any blip in George’s popularity is bound to be temporary.  Why?  Because Zarqawi’s death is not apt to change conditions on the ground all that much in the short run and may in fact lead to a bloody round of revenge attacks.  Independently functioning al-Qaida cells may even turn from blowing up market places filled with Shia civilians, the preferred target of the group in recent months, to actually attacking American and other occupying forces.

            The problem is America has a leadership fetish when it comes to terrorism.  The long Cold War with the Soviet Union and its auxiliaries trained the U.S. military to concentrate on removing the enemy’s “command and control” systems as the highest priority of warfare.  This made perfect sense given the Soviet style of rigid top-down command with little individual leeway for operations by subordinates and no reward for initiative.  That kind of a snake really can be killed by cutting off its head.

But the enemy in the so-called War Against Terror is not a snake.  It is more like a worm—sever it anywhere and the halves slither blithely away to grow new ends.  Reaching for another metaphor, other observers liken it to a Hydra, the many headed monster of Greek myth. 

By whatever comparison it is clear that although the death of Zarqawi might have removed an exceptionally vicious head, one with a certain flair for self-promotion and a confounding tactical dash, others are ready in the short run to take his place.  They might not be so effective, but blowing people up is a crude sort of work and can be sustained for a very long time by intellects not qualified for admission to Super Arch Villain Fraternity.

            More to the point, al-Qaida in Iraq, was never more than a particularly bloody minded sliver of the forces opposing American troops in that country.  U.S. intelligence, if such a term is not a complete oxymoron when applied to this region, has estimated that foreign fighters in the country never amounted to more than 10% of the total.  Many, maybe even most of those, were never formally under the al-Qaida command at all.

            The great majority of the insurgency in Iraq was, is, and will be home grown.  That insurgency itself is split up into many elements from organized remnants of Saddam’s armed forces, tribal forces, local militias, and even criminal gangs.  It has Baathist sectarian elements, Sunnis both Wahabist and moderate, and even on an on-again-off again basis, some Shia.  Much of the violence is fueled by a blood feud sense of vengeance against the depredation of clumsy American occupiers.  All of this will roll along merrily without Zarqawi, and even without al-Qaida.

            If al-Qaida does fade as a player, and it probably would over the long haul, it will come as a relief to many both inside and outside the resistance.  Certainly Zarqawi’s greatest legacy has not been piles of American bodies but the stoking of open civil war between Sunis and Shia.  It has contributed to Suni isolation in the new government and the ascension to power of some of the most militant anti-Suni Shia, who are pleased to loose their militias, now anointed as Interior Police, as death squads.  Zarqawi’s unremitting atrocities against Shia and his targeting of their most holy sites helped make that inevitable.

            The irony is that in the long run if al-Qaida fades, there may be ways to ratchet down the spiral of Shia/Suni revenge killings.  And far from uniting the factions behind the government, seen by almost everyone as an American puppet, it might solidify the insurgency’s focus on American opposition.

            Am I just another lefty nay-sayer trying to throw cold water on a great American achievement?  I’ll tell you what.  I’ll let the President claim his victory if he will use this occasion to declare victory once and for all and get our troops the hell out of Iraq.

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