Shall we speak of idiocy or rather ambition and know the two are wed at the hip, Siamese twins adorned with folly and pride? What laurels have we wasted, what roses, and we forgot the thorns until we were well into the briar patch. Bramble roses have thorns curved like cat's claws, all the better to snag and catch. Beware the dragons hidden in thickets.

The Cradle of Civilisation, Mesopotamia, the Fertile Crescent, the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers, birthplace of Abraham, this is what we invade for capitalist corporate political industrio-militaristic interests. The towns in the news of that far away land are places we have no memory of, no sense for, amidst a civilisation older than we can imagine.

Al Kufah was the capital of the Moslem world under Ali, son-in-law of Mohammed the Prophet. Ali's tomb is in nearby An Najaf.

Karballa is the site of the tomb for Husein, the second son of Ali.

Tel Hammal, near Baghdad, is an archeological site where clay tablets of mathematical problems indicate schoolboys were learning about the hypotenuse of a right triangle 1,700 years before Euclid's time.

Al Basrah was founded in 636 by Moslem Arabs, and was used as a seaport by Sinbad the Sailor.

Baghdad was founded in 762 and was soon known as a great center for learning and arts, and the beautiful tiled buildings and fountains were celebrated in the tales of Arabian Nights.

Tikrit is the birthplace in 1138 of Saladin, who fought Richard the Lionheart in the Third Crusade.

Nuzi, near Kirkuk, is the archeological site that boasts a clay tablet from 2500 BC, upon which is scribed the oldest known map.

Al Hillah was fair city to one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Hanging Gardens built by King Nebuchadnezzer in the 6th century for his wife.

And we, who bomb these places in order to gain control of crude oil as part of The Great Game, oh please don't pretend it's anything new, have the audacity to declare we're doing it to liberate the inhabitants of this world, and show them the errors of their ways. We say we'll bring them democracy and freedom... when we don't quite seem to have a grasp on those concepts in the first place. We are barbarians. They have seen us before.

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September unsettled I can smell the burdock and the rotting apples under a hundred thousand trees, half gone wild, all scraggly and the homes of birds.

They flew away today, they flew away. They all flew away for what, for why, for whom? They flew away. How large are the jaws of the serpent? How still are the unblinking eyes? They flew away, those dreams, and down down down came the towers.

Long black limousines in lines on a map, crooked city streets, images of unreality, images of commerce, and now images of political ambition. How best to utilize the deaths of innocents, of innocence?

They flew away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away
and we declare war in their names and we take the war to a country uninvolved and we spill more blood in their names and we say they're remembered and we sell souvenirs of pride and folly.

I wish them only peace. War is not peace. Doublespeak is deception. It is disrespectful of the dead.