STOP KILLING IRAQIS

Stop shooting them! Stop bombing them! Stop bombing their places of worship! Stop destroying their homes and their cities! Stop incarcerating them without due process! Stop putting sandbags over their heads! Stop torturing them! Just bloody STOP!

Haven’t they suffered enough? Is this the face of the new Middle East we are promised? Is this the best you can offer? Am I supposed to tell people here to abandon their God, tradition, and the way of life for this Promised Land? Is this really what we need here—yet another tribe with its own blood lust roaming around in this god forsaken land?

Hoo-a, break more skulls! Hoo-a, kick some ass! Hoo-a, send more bloody signals! Hoo-a, assimilate, subdue, pacify, kill, kill, kill! Hoo-a! Flatten them, punish collectively.

How would you spell crude, vulgar “onanistic … Americanism” of the belligerent variety anyhow?

You can never be brutal enough, right? There is never a sufficient display of force, right? Never resolute enough , right? How many more mass graves does it take? No mass graves you say in a year since the invasion? What’s a mass grave any how? Bodies with no identity-- buried, forgotten, No?

How many Iraqis have been killed this past year alone? How many of you know names, ages, families, likes or dislikes? How many of you do care? Do they matter, at all? Are you not ashamed of yourselves? I certainly am…I too don’t know.

Call it a personal resolution of mine: simply put, not to knowingly participate (if I can help it) in harming Iraqis. Responsible or not, guilty or not, first they were killed by us, Iranians-- bombed, tortured, imprisoned, and buried in their thousands. I know Saddam started it all, but Iraqis suffered, as millions of our citizens did as well.

Yes, some of us did the killing and the dying, but don’t you ever forget: we have not forgotten your smug, self-satisfied smirks thinking successful Dual Containment each time Iranians and Iraqis died in their thousands. And all those weapons, conventional and chemical sold here. Great investment! Some of the people in their thousands are still suffering with boils on their bodies and with burned lungs. A job well done! Have another beer or two! Watch more football.

Then the long nightmare of the sanctions, with children dying in their thousands and hordes of the young Iraqi men, and women killed by Saddam, Bush I, and now Bush II. They come in sequels here…. Bashirs, Sharons, Rafsanjanis, Bushes, Gadhafis… and on and on it goes. Hoo-a!

Your language we understand perfectly. Our Leaders speak it well. Mass murderers speak it even better. It is the old, familiar language of the abusers. It is at once personal and historical. Problems never have anything to do with you, or your policies right? Always outside conspiracies, right?

“Who moi?” “ Don’t make me hurt you!” “ Don’t talk to that bitch anymore…bad influence.” “Now, why did you have go do this stupid thing to make me throw you down those stairs?” “You are making me… you know I love you…right?” “I know what’s best for you.” “Trust me. Just lie back and enjoy.”

Discontent is never home grown, is it? Always those pesky outside agitators, you know? The Northern trouble makers, the Imperialist sympathizing Kulak dogs, the Great Satan’s youthful pawns? And now they are simply the Iranian agents/pilgrims in Iraq, are they?

How do you spell “onanistic …Americanism” of the murderous, jingoistic kind, anyways?