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.]