H e a r t   S o n s   &   H e a r t   D a u g h t e r s   of   A l l e n   G i n s b e r g

N a p a l m   H e a l t h   S p a :   R e p o r t   2 0 1 4 :   A r c h i v e s   E d i t i o n

 

 

ELIOT KATZ

 

 

The Logic of War

 

1

A group of Bush Sr’s US-armed

fundamentalist freedom fighters

compared to our own founding fathers

have become Bush Jr’s evildoers

who need to be smoked from their caves––

and the National Review philosophers

say postmodern theory has wrecked

the planet with relativism?

 

2

How come if we stop shopping

the terrorists win?

But if we create a million starving refugees

through bombing

the terrorists haven’t won?

 

3

Because the World Trade Center was attacked

any Bush-initiated response is considered beyond reproach.

Locked in the language of war, it’s impossible

to find another way out.

 

4

We are fighting to preserve freedom

a cause so important almost no dissent

can be televised

 

Where’s the discussion in mainstream press whether

investigations, intelligence, freezing assets, police action arrests

plus a more democratic egalitarian foreign policy

would have been more appropriate

and effective in the long term

than war?

 

5

Although a person’s terrorist links may be as-yet unproven

he or she may be denied a civilian trial

given a military tribunal exclusively for terrorists

at the sole discretion of one who stole highest office

with the help of five civilian judges.

 

6

A 15,000-pound bomb is called a daisy cutter

 

7

Every day ticker tape moves across bottom

of CNN’s screen

updating the latest estimate of WTC missing

presumed dead

now hovering around 3,000.

Each day NY Times features an obit page

with individualized moving stories

of victims of 9/11’s inexcusable horror.

Through tragedy described on personal level

we are learning the preciousness

of Each Human Life.

 

Bin Laden on videotape gloats heinously

over high American civilian death counts

he calls blessed terror

Every day we are learning which human lives

are precious to whom.

 

A New Hampshire professor has completed a study

estimating over 3,700 Afghan civilian deaths

from U.S. bombs.

Not a single mainstream NY paper or TV station

covers this study or derives

their own tally.

Each week I see one or two articles on the web

about starving freezing refugees                               

forced to flee the bombing

300,000 shivering in Maslakh, 100 dying each night,

230 buried in Dehdadi, mostly kids

judging from small size of burial plots.

 

The Pentagon says it is pointless to attempt verify

Afghan civilian deaths

Every day we are learning that the value

of human life is relative

to how many steps removed one feels

from the dead one’s relatives.

 

8

On Fox News, Bill O’Reilly says Afghans

are responsible for crimes

of their government.

Does anyone remember Vietnam?

Blessed terror of the Nicaraguan Contras?

Angola’s Unita? Latin American death squads?

 

Thankfully, no other country’s military

blamed me or my friends for those.

 

Didn’t the U.S. Cold War government help create

the cave tunnel training camps

for which Afghans are being bombed?

One of these centuries leaders on all sides will learn

to leave the gods and people out of it.

 

9

Our newest ally Pakistan supports terrorists

that have stormed India’s parliamentary gates.

The U.S. sensibly urges India to show restraint.

 

10

Those who remained in cities & survived––celebrate.

In a refugee camp, a mob has beaten Robert Fisk,

only major Western journalist in country

writing against massive bombing

because he looked Western & didn’t speak their language

& his driver looked like George Bush.

 

I protested the war as a risky gamble with millions

of innocent Afghan lives

but am quite happy to watch the fascist Taliban flee,

music being played,

& women walking Kabul’s streets w/o burkas.

 

11

What idiot wouldn’t realize terror attacks

would be a gift to the American Right

as well as mass murder untold sentient beings?

 

If the terrorists attacked mainly because

they don’t like our individual freedoms––

then by supporting the president

in all his foreign & domestic policies

don’t we let the terrorists win?

 

For now, we are teaching the terrorists a clear lesson

that you don’t solve your gripes with bombs

unless you’re the world’s sole superpower.

 

 

[Originally published in NHS 2002, http://www.poetspath.com/napalm/nhs02/katz.html.]