History repeats itself In a mindless and never-ending loop. In 2003, only a dozen years after the end of the first Gulf War, the Bush II administration again bombed and invaded Iraq. The administration based its rationale for war principally on the false assertion that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed an immediate threat to the United States and its allies.
Each day, images of ruined buildings and videos of massive explosions flood the internet. According to the Geneva Academy of International Humanitaian Law, there are currently more than 110 armed conflicts happening right now across the globe. The bombings and missile strikes in Gaza, Iran, Ukraine, Syria, Lebenon, Yemen, and elsewhere, continue to kill and maim innocent children. What we are seeing is death in real time, not graphics from some video game.
Just prior to the “Shock and Awe” bombing of Baghdad in 2003, filmmaker A. D. Liano and I asked random people we met on the street in San Francisco to read lines from my poem ”War Stinks” on camera, which resulted in the short video above. The text of the poem follows:
WAR STINKS
like burning flesh and gasoline
like gunpowder and cigarettes
like the skull-and-cross-bone grimace
of a Pentagon press briefing
or the unveiling of a new weapon
like exhaust from machines of destruction
like cluster bombs in a schoolyard
like the shit-smeared self-satisfaction
of dog-collared politicians
and their corporate masters
like journalists in bed with the military
like high explosive vomit and electric piss
like sweat, like fear, like decapitation
like nuclear fallout and radiation
like the decomposing bodies
of dogs, of crows, of children
half-buried under rubble
like a plastic sack full of amputations
like a hospital without medicine
like an open wound, an open grave
like amonia, like chlorine
like shock and awe
like diarrhea and dysentary
like cholora and hepatitis
like mustard gas and nerve agents
like rotting fruit and potatoes
like an army field latrine
like hatred and lies
like greed and power
like uranium enriched scat
like suffering and sorrow
like the concept of wealth
and the myth of nations
like the fanaticism of religions
and the death of the soul
like a river of raw sewage
like the end of all reason
like self-induced madness
like a rubber mask asphyxiation
like the cold embrace of chaos
like rotting seafood
like the black heart of a murderer
like vileness and filth
and whatever else festers
in the unholy empire of death
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