pomes of buddy don: It Can't Be Our Fault

It Can’t Be Our Fault

You fought through the war, you’re home and upset,
But we don’t want to hear nothing no how,
We don’t want to see you on our Tee Vee set
Fighting the wars we don’t care about now.

The bombs, the destruction, it all brings us down —
We don’t want to seem the least bit unkind —
But we have a game, our team is in town,
So why should we sully our beautiful mind?

Why should we care about demons who haunt
You soldiers, you sailors, airmen or marines?
You come home brooding and looking so gaunt
As if we should share in the trouble you’ve seen!

We just want to relax, knock back a few beers,
It can’t be our fault since you’re all volunteers!

pomes of buddy don: sovereignty

Sovereignty

The problem with these new democracies
Is that they fail to understand their vote
Can make it look as if we would appease
The very folks we never would promote.

How dare Iraqis we gave liberty
Raise questions about our noble intent
Or whine about our gift of sovereignty
When it’s their freedom we helped implement?

Why must their legislature act as though
Allowing our troops to extend their stay
Until we have decided we should go
Should put their sovereignty in disarray?

Our ways are very simple, can’t they see?
By force we’ll make them stand up and be free!

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: No Need for Pravda Here

No Need for Pravda Here

We don’t need your Pravda in the U S!
We have our ways to get the same job done –
We simply make use of our famous free press
Who question naught our retired guys have spun.

For when a general has to retire
It doesn’t mean his usefulness is through –
Since as a lobbyist he might be hired
And we can help him if he helps us too.

We call them “message force multipliers” –
They help us sell a war that might look mad –
This doesn’t mean that we’re a bunch of liars
Just that the “truth” needs its own launching pad.

Osama was the first we vowed to bring back,
Instead we had to sell our war in Iraq.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: So?

They called the "escalation" just a "surge,"
Since many can remember that grim word
From Viet Nam, where "escalation's" dirge
Was often all that we the people heard.

They would not let us see returning dead,
Since that might make us think the war had cost
Too much when what they needed was, instead,
A fairy tale where our wars can't be lost.

They would not budget for the cost of war
Since that might mean an honest, free debate
About whether we would spend anymore
On a war where we would not "escalate."

They didn't tell us much — how apropos! —
Since when they hear our viewpoints, they say, "So?"

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: Not Much

No Much

It’s five years on and what have we achieved?
For great and grand are our accomplishments!
The weapons that weren’t there were sure perceived
And that they weren’t was pure coincidence!

And though Osama and Saddam were foes,
With one religious, one a worldly man,
We’ve beaten one down to his own last throes —
The other? Well, we’ll catch him when we can.

What matters is we spread democracy —
A reason we discovered on the way
To help explain our own hypocrisy —
What matters are not deeds but what we say!

And how much did this grand adventure cost?
Not much compared to all that we have lost!

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: Someone Else's Problem

Someone Else's Problem

A scant six years ago this very day
We were attacked upon our native soil –
It’s true we let the culprit get away
But he hid in a land that had no oil!

And yet we know we’re doing the right thing
Since in his video bin Laden said
That right there in Iraq we’d feel the sting
Of losing where we chose to fight instead.

And so another FU's ante’d up –
Six months more to show what we can do –
And if we come home like a wounded pup
The blame will tar someone who's not Bush Two!

Same old, same old, same old: why get upset?
And yet I can't compose the last couplet!

[update: i dint much lack that thisn cum out without the 14 lines a sonnet orta have, so i tacked on a endin that splains why i couldnt finish the last two lines. i also fixed the 12th line sos it wurked a lil better.]

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: What He Cannot Know

What He Cannot Know

We’re supposed to believe his predictions –
Although they’re consistently incorrect
Involving obvious contradictions
Between claims we aren’t supposed to connect.

For he was the one who claimed we would find
Such weapons of mass destruction that we
Could not sleep at night, have no peace of mind,
Till we had turned them into useless debris.

And have we forgotten his famous claim
That we would soon capture, dead or alive,
The al qaeda leader of nine one one fame,
Who uses Iraq to help his group thrive?

So why should we buy what he cannot know
When he claims they’ll follow us home if we go?

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: Our Ally

Our Ally

Bush once proclaimed for all the world to hear
That every nation had a choice to make:
Those who stood with us would have no fear
While those who did not would rue their mistake

The central front, he claimed, would be Iraq
Where our brave soldier targets are quagmired –
(We can’t escape till Bush runs out the clock
So we’ll be there until his term's expired.)

Yet Pakistan’s al qaeda is revived –
Since nine eleven it’s not been so strong –
Our lust to get Osama was short-lived
While his to terrorize us has gone long.

The terrorists now rule Waziristan!
Harbored by someone's ally, Pakistan.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: Collaterally Damaged

Collaterally Damaged

Collaterally damaged I’m as dead
As if I had been murdered in cold blood –
As if a terrorist chopped off my head –
As if the mine I stepped on was no dud.

Collaterally damaged I leave friends,
My co-workers, my family behind
To question why and how and to what ends
My dying innocent should be defined.

Collaterally damaged I’m a cause
For anger and a longing for revenge
Against those whose war plans were filled with flaws
As they pursued their own wrongs to avenge.

Is there an end that such death justifies?
Perhaps, but not in wars begun by lies.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: How Does A Great Republic

How Does A Great Republic

The Bush administration acts as though
They do not have to guard the constitution –
The one they swore to protect even though
It might restrict their thirst for retribution.

They are the people’s servants, after all –
Since we elected them, not the reverse –
And yet they act as if we have no call
To question why our freedoms are traversed.

For they were chosen to preserve our rights
And not to violate them on the claim
That their job is to shield us from the fights
And all the troops who come back dead or lame.

How does a great republic lose its way?
By letting its ideals be betrayed.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: How Pre-Nine Eleven!

How Pre-Nine Eleven!

So pre-nine eleven is the mindset
You have to wonder, “Were they even there?”
Their blinkers on, they seem to have a blindset
To anything but how to use the scare.

Our military might is our great pride
And it performed its duty well when asked –
But even such power can’t long abide
When with the unattainable it’s tasked.

For it was not a state that attacked us –
No army was amassed or could invade –
Only our bad decisions could distract us –
And nothing’s more backward than a “crusade.”

Regime change was the preconceived idea,
But how pre-nine eleven is Korea?

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: We Came As Liberators to Their Soil

We Came As Liberators to Their Soil

Why can’t they understand we’re here to stay?
That doing so is for their benefit?
If not, then why would we work night and day
To build an embassy too big to fit?

For truth is we have not come just to leave
When we believe the battle is in sway –
As long as fear persuades folks to believe
That terrorists fought there will stay away.

We’ll help them sell their oil to our friends –
And even offer them our oil giants –
To sell the stuff at a cost that extends
The bounty that will ease our own reliance.

We came as liberators to their soil –
But what we need to liberate is oil.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: Such Emotions

Such Emotions

The students were all shot dead in cold blood,
Their killer acting for motives that none
Could understand completely, though the flood
Of outrage at the madman and his gun

Led to recriminations left and right
And up and down in trying to make sense
Of how anything ever could ignite
A fury so destructive and immense.

Those left behind were shattered and bereft
Of relatives or friends or lovers dear,
As all were taken by the sudden theft.
And yet they do live on, they persevere.

We all are distressed by a tale so sad:
Are such emotions not felt in Bagdhad?

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: The Truth Is

The Truth Is

How grand to see the tyrant's statue fall
From where it towered high above the square,
The dictator pushed out with no recall,
The people dancing, freedom in the air.

With little left to do but to rebuild
The scattered rubble of our shock and awe,
The profitable charts would be fulfilled
And we then with our honor would withdraw.

How could what was so plain turn so complex
As to become a trap from which no plan
Has yet been hatched that anyone projects
Could extricate us from what we began?

The truth is violence leads to no gain,
A truth that Abel taught his brother Cain.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: The Central Front

The Central Front

In this world lives no one free of all sin
And no one too depraved to find redemption –
To win we all must take the fight within
For no one has been granted an exemption.

We win their hearts and minds by our example,
By proving with our works we’re good and true –
We win no hearts by dropping a great sample
Of what our military might can do.

For when we give into evil’s temptation
Whether to torture or to turn our back
We ourselves spread terror’s infestation –
The central front’s inside, not in Iraq.

For terror hides not some spider hole,
But in each human mind and heart and soul.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: Failure Is Not an Option

this lil pome below is ment to be the endin to the three pomes i posted last week name of The First Hubristic Failure, Our Second Failure, and Our Third Great Failure. mayhap i will putt em all four together tomorruh, but ye git the idee.

Failure Is Not an Option

Our count of Iraq failures start with three
And spiral upwards almost endlessly –
Our failure to find W M D
Or to restore pre-war ‘lectricity
Or to up-armor our own HMVs
Or to provide the kevlar our troops need
Or to anticipate contractor greed –

We failed to track the billions handed out
As cash that we can’t prove beyond a doubt
Did not go to al qaeda in Iraq
Or to replenish the insurgents’ stock
Of weapons and of war materiél,
Of the ingredients that make war hell.

Or to guard arms dumps as they were looted,
The weapons then used by those recruited
To join in violent retribution
On those who warped their own constitution
At Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and at "Black Sites" –
Pure ideals compromised with evil rites–

This list can be extended as all know
Since this war is an internetted show –
We fail if we depart, yet if we wait
We’re caught in civil war’s cross-fire hate.

Our President says failure’s not an option and it’s true
Since in Iraq, time after time, failure’s just what we do.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: Our Third Great Failure

Our Third Great Failure

Our third great failure was that we installed
Political appointees to run all –
Or if it was not all, then it was most –
Of the prime institutions from their posts
Within The Green Zone where they felt no harm
From gunfire, explosions or alarms,
Or from their gaping lack of expertise
At running even well-made agencies,
Which theirs were not since we, with shock and awe,
Had brought the infrastructure to a crawl
And used Iraq as our own proving ground
For economic theories that abound
In Chicago labs, not the arena
Where events occur such as Katrina.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: Our Second Failure

Our Second Failure

Our second failure was when we presumed
To disband their armed forces, who were doomed
To fade into their homeland desert sands,
Each with his Devil’s workshop idle hands,
Where, with no means to earn his daily bread –
Since coalition leaders chose instead
To hire no-bid contract companies
Who’d earned their booty by the victories
Won in elections in the USA
(For to the victor go the spoils, they say!) –
He could observe the messy liberty
And degradation of security
As we were amazed by the emergence
Of such well-trained Iraqi insurgents.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: The First Hubristic Failure

The First Hubristic Failure

The first hubristic failure was to think
That in the governing of three distinct,
Antagonistic groups who’d never choose
To be a single country, to be fused
Into the pressure-cooker human stock,
Forged by the British and then called Iraq,
That we knew how, with bullets and with guns
And billions upon billions of our funds,
To do with good what no one else has done,
That is, to compel them to live as one,
Secure in peace and brotherhood as friends,
To show us gratitude, to serve our ends
(And never to become a Vietnam)
As soon as we brought down the vile Saddam.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pinions of buddy don: fishin thru the net

heres a few thangs that state thangs all too well. frum that thar daily kos site, thays this articull name of The Good Option by darksyde:

Are you losing track of the good and the bad in Iraq? We're told the Sunni insurgents are bad, but they're backed by Bush's noble Saudi pals. The Shiites are our default allies in Iraq, but the Iranians who are helping them are bad. The Kurds are good, because they're relatively peaceful and independent, except their peaceful independence is creating profound anxiety among our Turkish friends, which is bad. Al Qaeda is bad, we all agree, except when they oppose Shiite Cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, which is ... what ... good?

And that's only scratching the surface. Within each of these groups are a dazzling array of quasi-official militias, criminal gangs, death squads, and even the local version of end-o-the-world religious maniacs hoping to hasten Armageddon. On any given day, these groups can be 'good,' while, paradoxically, their allies are 'bad.' Those classifications swing unpredictably on a right-wing whim dictated by whatever bullshit soundbite is mumbled incoherently that day to keep our fighting men and women in the blood-soaked turmoil.

The confusion is only furthered by an Administration warning that Iran may get involved if we leave, while telling us on alternating days that Iran is deeply involved. That Al Qaeda could gain a foothold in any vacuum left behind, while telling us repeatedly that the place is swarming with Al Qaeda. And we're sternly reminded we cannot pull US forces out or Iraq would become a failed state, in blissful, willful ignorance of the fact that Iraq is a failed state and, more to the point, it became one while occupied by US forces.

reeminds me of that ny times articull name of In a New Joint U.S.-Iraqi Patrol, the Americans Go First:

When the Iraqi units finally did show up, it was with the air of a class outing, cheering and laughing as the Americans blew locks off doors with shotguns. As the morning wore on and the troops came under fire from all directions, another apparent flaw in this strategy became clear as empty apartments became lairs for gunmen who flitted from window to window and killed at least one American soldier, with a shot to the head.

Whether the gunfire was coming from Sunni or Shiite insurgents or militia fighters or some of the Iraqi soldiers who had disappeared into the Gotham-like cityscape, no one could say.

“Who the hell is shooting at us?” shouted Sgt. First Class Marc Biletski, whose platoon was jammed into a small room off an alley that was being swept by a sniper’s bullets. “Who’s shooting at us? Do we know who they are?”

sad thang is, we are stuck in a war that everbidy agrees we dont have no idee how to git out of.

that putts me in mind of a book i red a cuple years ago by Kevin Philips name of Wealth and Democracy whar he splaind how the prior three grate world economick powers cum undun. thay wuz three steps to the process, witch heres the way i member em:

1. in sted of makin thangs, ye git folks in other cuntries to make em fer ye on a counta how they kin doot fer less money, makin it moren more possibull fer them thats rich to git richer, futher concentratin the cuntrys wealth in fewer n fewer hands
2. after ye git to be a grate worl power, ye go frum havin a economy based on makin thangs to one based on finants, insurants, n real estate
3. yer cuntry becums a debtor nayshun (we dun that in 1985 with the hep frum presdint raygun), witch that makes the disparity of wealth, meanin the concentrayshun of wealth into the hands of fewer n fewer people, grow
4. yer cuntry gits itself involved in a long war that it caint git out of.

the good news is how we dont need to wurry no more bout that global warmin stuff on a counta how thay aint nuthin we kin really do bout it now.

taint no wunder we luv sports so much: lease thar we kin have justus n fair play. n ifn it seems lack thay wuz a bad call, ye kin have a instunt reeplay. wish we could have one fer that seleckshun of 2000.

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