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: Our Country, Right or Wrong

Our Country, Right or Wrong

Why can’t these peace-niks see how well it works
To rough up someone who might know some thing*
That might help us to find the evil jerks
Who might attack us like a bee might sting?

Why do surrender monkeys** all insist
That harshly enhanced methods can’t succeed
In getting scum we’ve captured to assist
In telling us most everything we need?

Why do these agents of the FBI***
Claim to have witnessed some unlawful scenes
Or methods that they claim must go awry
As if the ends don’t justify the means?

Can’t they see our good nation, brave and strong,
Can’t be defined by actions, right or wrong?±

*Roots of US war prisoners' rights run deep

But George Washington and his compatriots took their founding principles quite seriously. On Aug. 11, 1775, Washington sent a blistering letter to a British counterpart, Thomas Gage. He complained about gravely wounded and untreated American soldiers being thrown into a jail with common criminals.

Eight days later, despite threatening to treat British soldiers with equal cruelty, Washington admitted that he could not and would not retaliate in kind, writing: "Not only your Officers, and Soldiers have been treated with a Tenderness due to Fellow Citizens, & Brethren; but even those execrable Parricides [traitors] whose Counsels & Aid have deluged their Country with Blood, have been protected from the Fury of a justly enraged People."

Imagine that; a government on the run fighting a desperate war against a hated enemy and treating captured prisoners with compassion and decency. No doubt many of the captured British troops had intelligence that might have been useful to the Revolutionary cause - still, decent treatment was the norm. In the current war on terror, that would be described as being "soft."

**McCain fights exception to torture ban; Ex-POW assails bid to exempt the CIA

WASHINGTON -- Senator John McCain yesterday warned that a push by the White House to exempt overseas CIA agents from a proposed ban on mistreating prisoners in US custody would exacerbate the problem of detainee abuse by giving interrogators legal authority to torture suspected terrorists.

''I don't see how you could possibly agree to legitimizing an agent of the government engaging in torture," said the Arizona Republican, who survived torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. ''No amendment at all would be better than that."

McCain went public with his concerns after published reports yesterday that Vice President Dick Cheney met with him to urge changes to his widely supported proposal to outlaw cruel and degrading treatment of detainees by any US official. Cheney suggested exempting CIA counter-terrorism agents working overseas, but McCain balked.

***Interrogation Tactics Were Challenged at White House

Five years ago, as troubling reports emerged about the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a career lawyer at the Justice Department began a long and relatively lonely campaign to alert top Bush administration officials to a strategy he considered “wrongheaded.”

Bruce C. Swartz, a criminal division deputy in charge of international issues, repeatedly questioned the effectiveness of harsh interrogation tactics at White House meetings of a special group formed to decide detainee matters, with representatives present from the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA.

Swartz warned that the abuse of Guantanamo inmates would do “grave damage” to the country’s reputation and to its law enforcement record, according to an investigative audit released earlier this week by the Justice Department’s inspector general. Swartz was joined by a handful of other top Justice and FBI officials who said the abuse would almost certainly taint any legal proceedings against the detainees.

Now their predictions appear to be coming true. A top Pentagon official chose this month to drop charges against a detainee who was roughly interrogated at Guantanamo, and U.S. officials believe it may be difficult to charge him at all. Defense lawyers for a group of alleged Sept. 11 conspirators in U.S. custody have said they plan to raise concerns about harsh techniques used by the CIA and will seek to keep evidence derived from such tactics out of court.

±Matthew 7:15-20

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

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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.

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limricks of buddy don: If You Can’t Beat 'em, Join 'em

If You Can’t Beat 'em, Join 'em

The general’s coup was a nifty one,
Our ally, a world-class shifty one,
Is now a dictator –
We might complain later –
Or else use NSPD 51!

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pomes of buddy don: Reserved for Use

Reserved for Use

How can it be that we are so confused
As not to know what’s torture or what’s not?
The very methods Torquemada used
Repulsed us – can it be that we forgot?

The process then was called the Water Cure –
A staple of the Spanish Inquisition –
That it was torture we are pretty sure
Since history has stated its position.

The Chinese Water Torture was a name–
Whoever coined it knew nothing of spin! –
That long was used in passing out the blame
For actions that we recognized as sin.

Now it’s not an act we would condemn
As long it’s reserved for use on “them.”

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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.]

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pomes of buddy don: Over There

Over There

It’s true we’d rather fight them “over there”
Than have to face their evil “over here,”
And yet a bit of math leads to despair
Since “over theres” are everywhere you peer.

We missed one in Afghanistan and let
Osama bin Laden slip through our fingers,
Which meant another “over there” to get
In Pakistan where safely he still lingers.

We added Iraq to our “over theres”
Although ‘twas fifteen Saudis who attacked
But Mecca has us bound in oil’s snares –
With payments for their crude we still react!

With far too many “over theres,” it’s clear,
Our wisest move is defense over here!

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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?

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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.

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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.

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pomes of buddy don: The Arguments of Hate

The Arguments of Hate

Terrorism is a mental illness
That travels as disease among mankind,
Infecting souls in movement and in stillness
With arguments that linger in the mind.

It thrives where mass resistance is brought low
By policies and actions that debase
An oppressed people who want quid pro quo
Against a greater force they can’t erase.

In such a people arguments resound
That power must by evil be addressed,
That violation of their holy ground
Legitimize the acts of terrorists.

No army on earth could inoculate
A land against the arguments of hate.

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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.

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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.

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pomes of buddy don: Let's Whistle!

Let's Whistle!

I wouldn't send enough troops
When enough troops would have mattered –
Shinseki's guess was wildly off the mark –
Perhaps mistakes were made – oops! –
And the war plan has been tattered –
Let's send more troops and whistle in the dark!

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pomes of buddy don: For Want of Truth

For Want of Truth

For want of truth
The plan was botched –
For want of a plan
The museum was robbed –
For want of the museum's protection
The culture was dissed –
For want of cultural respect
Trust was lost –
For want of trust
Security was lost –
For want of security
The hearts and minds of the people were lost –
For want of the hearts and minds of the people
The chance for peace was lost –
For want of honesty about the lost peace
More troops were lost –
For want of a reason for more troops to die
Faith in the war was lost –
For want of faith in the war
The war was lost –
For want of honesty about the lost war
More troops were lost –
More terrorists created –
Our reputation tarnished –
And our safety threatened for at least a generation –
And all for want of truth.

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pomes of buddy don: The Force of Price

The Force of Pride

The Bible says that pride precedes a fall,
And hubris is, of all the tragic flaws,
The one most likely to lose once for all
The chance of victory for any cause.

So what could come of pride in our great might –
Our military industrial strength –
But proof that force alone does not make right
Nor win the hearts and minds held at arm's length?

For that task we would need humility
Enough to ask if we might have been wrong
To think brawn could enforce stability
Upon a land where we do not belong.

How long will our pride force us to slog on
Long after hope of victory is gone?

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pomes of buddy don: We Want a Land

We Want a Land

There were no weapons of mass destruction –
Just as there were no al qaeda links –
There was no security for reconstruction –
Iraq was a puzzle worthy of the sphinx.

We dreamed Iraq would be a great beacon –
Freedom, Democracy, Liberty, too –
A land whose bright example would weaken
The hands of the terrorists we pursue.

But our noble goals have been restated –
We now want Iraq to defend itself –
To get its violent factions sedated –
To use its oil to build fiscal health.

We want a land that can do, unaided,
Things it could do before we invaded.

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pomes of buddy don: Give Him Peace of Mind

Give Him Peace of Mind

The little man could not admit he ever made mistakes –
That was his calling card throughout the land –
Though roadsigns called for caution he would never use the brakes –
His gut was all that he could understand.

If soldiers died in searching for what never could be found
Their deaths would be the reason to slog on –
Even with three thousand of them buried underground
He wouldn't even say, "I'll be doggone!"

So whom could he appoint to bring fresh eyes to stale events –
To tell him in new ways the same old tales?
To make intelligence claim that what it misrepresents
Is proven by the classified details?

Experience in such a feat is surely hard to find
But at the gates there stands someone to give him peace of mind!


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pomes of buddy don: We Must Complete the Mission

We Must Complete the Mission

Al qaeda is to blame –
Their power has not faded –
They joined the fight with evil aim
As soon as we'd invaded.

But we won't quit until we win,
You simply must believe –
We will not take it on the chin
And lose if we should leave!

So it can't be a civil war –
Since that would mean we'd failed!
For those at home keeping score,
We stay till we've prevailed!

We came with force into their land with freedom to bestow –
We must complete the mission we accomplished long ago.

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pomes of buddy don: A Glowing Proof

A Glowing Proof

It was a glowing proof for all to see –
While ravaged by war we held elections!
Talk about the softest bigotry
Of the very lowest expectations!

But as for me, I truly think it's great –
Maybe we'll have more in two thousand eight!

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