| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Poems From Guantanamo
If you are a fan of poetical writings, you had best make room on
your bookshelf next to your collections of Tennyson,
Wordsworth and Keats because a brand new volume has just
been released that many of you will want to quickly acquire.
Well, at least those of you who are left-wing malcontents who
believe that the war on terror is nothing but a bumper sticker
slogan and the concept of detaining enemy combatants
indefinitely without their own dream teams of high-priced
lawyers is tantamount to war crimes.
The new volume is called "Poems from Guantanamo: The
Detainees Speak" and is a collection of 22 poems by 17
detainees at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay.
This thing has "best seller" written all over it because this
country, unfortunately, is cursed with an overabundance of
America-haters who will be snatching it off the shelves faster
than you can say "no blood for oil."
Of course, just because someone has had the searing experience
of being unjustly imprisoned by a warmongering
administration doesn't mean that he can automatically
compose outstanding verse as an expression of his anguish.
But here's a sampling; give it a read and judge for yourself.
DEATH POEM
Take my blood.
Take my death shroud and
The remnants of my body.
Take photographs of my corpse at the grave, lonely.
Send them to the world,
To the judges and
To the people of conscience,
Send them to the principled men and the fair-minded.
And let them bear the guilty burden, before the world,
Of this innocent soul.
Let them bear the burden, before their children and before
history,
Of this wasted, sinless soul,
Of this soul which has suffered at the hands of the
"protectors of peace."
Do I detect a bit of sarcasm in that last line about the
"protectors of peace?" Anyway, let's take a look at another of
these martyred masterpieces.
IS IT TRUE?
Is it true that the grass grows up again after the rain?
Is it true that the flowers will rise up in the spring?
Is it true that birds will migrate home again?
Is it true that the salmon swim back up their stream?
It is true. This is true. These are all miracles.
But is it true that one day we'll leave Guantánamo Bay?
Is it true that one day we'll go back to our homes?
I sail in my dreams, I am dreaming of homes.
To be with my children, each one part of me;
To be with my wife and the ones that I love;
To be with my parents, my world's tenderest hearts.
I dream to be home, to be free from this cage.
But do you hear me, oh Judge, do you hear me at all?
We are innocent, here, we've committed no crime.
Set me free, set us free, if anywhere still
Justice and compassion remain in this world!
Could you excuse me for a moment while I replenish my supply
of Kleenex?
Okay. Now, do you see any sort of pattern in these "poems?"
It's a funny thing, but just like everybody in every prison the
world over, amazingly, they're all innocent! All those poor guys
at Guantanamo are just a swell bunch of Islamic fellows who
were minding their own business when -- oops! -- they
happened to take a wrong turn at Kandahar, wandered onto a
battlefield populated by the Taliban and were snatched up and
carried away to the island of torment where there is no justice
and from which there is no escape.
Well, except for the 267 Guantanamo detainees who have thus
far either been released or transferred to the governments of
other countries. That's around one third of all detainees and
there are ongoing processes that continue to review the status
of all the rest.
(And by the way, quite a few of the ones released have been
caught once again committing acts of jihad against, as usual,
innocent people. Will wonders never cease?)
So, can we get real for just a moment? The home countries of
most of these detainees are dictatorships where the accused
and the imprisoned have either zero or next to zero rights. And
if we can be so bold as to assume that at least some of these
guys actually are, in fact, enemy combatants and/or terrorists,
think about what they’ve done to people and what they wish to
impose on entire societies. And they have the temerity to write
weepy poetry about the loss of freedom?
But let a handful of these accused jihadists write some half-
assed verses about the unjustness of their captivity and you can
sit back and watch left-wing sympathizers write glowing
reviews, such as the following:
"Poems from Guantanamo brings to light figures of concrete,
individual humanity, against the fabric of cruelty woven by the
'war on terror.' The poems and poets' biographies reveal one
dimension of this officially obscured narrative, from the
perspective of the sufferers; the legal and literary essays
provide the context which has produced--under atrocious
circumstances--a poetics of human dignity."--Adrienne Rich
Blah, blah, blah, etc., etc.
If some of these “poets” could get their hands on Adrienne
Rich, they’d cut her throat in a heartbeat just for being a filthy
infidel. What I’m trying to say is I think maybe Rich’s
sympathies are grotesquely misplaced. For instance, was she
at all concerned about the innocent victims of the Taliban
when they operated a regime in Afghanistan that made Nazi
Germany look civilized? What about Saddam’s nightmare
totalitarian regime which filled mass graves with hundreds of
thousands of innocents? How about the barbarism that
constitutes daily life across that huge swath of the planet
known as the Islamic world?
None of that will likely enter the minds of the legions of
American peaceniks who will buy the jihadists’ claims of
innocence hook, line and sinker and will snatch up copies of
this book which to them provides further justification of their
hatred for their own country.
“At last Guantanamo has found its voice,” said Gore Vidal of
this book of “poetry.” Yes, finally, at long last. It’s too bad the
same can’t be said for all the innocent victims of these brilliant
bards.
If you are a fan of poetical writings, you had best make room on
your bookshelf next to your collections of Tennyson,
Wordsworth and Keats because a brand new volume has just
been released that many of you will want to quickly acquire.
Well, at least those of you who are left-wing malcontents who
believe that the war on terror is nothing but a bumper sticker
slogan and the concept of detaining enemy combatants
indefinitely without their own dream teams of high-priced
lawyers is tantamount to war crimes.
The new volume is called "Poems from Guantanamo: The
Detainees Speak" and is a collection of 22 poems by 17
detainees at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay.
This thing has "best seller" written all over it because this
country, unfortunately, is cursed with an overabundance of
America-haters who will be snatching it off the shelves faster
than you can say "no blood for oil."
Of course, just because someone has had the searing experience
of being unjustly imprisoned by a warmongering
administration doesn't mean that he can automatically
compose outstanding verse as an expression of his anguish.
But here's a sampling; give it a read and judge for yourself.
DEATH POEM
Take my blood.
Take my death shroud and
The remnants of my body.
Take photographs of my corpse at the grave, lonely.
Send them to the world,
To the judges and
To the people of conscience,
Send them to the principled men and the fair-minded.
And let them bear the guilty burden, before the world,
Of this innocent soul.
Let them bear the burden, before their children and before
history,
Of this wasted, sinless soul,
Of this soul which has suffered at the hands of the
"protectors of peace."
Do I detect a bit of sarcasm in that last line about the
"protectors of peace?" Anyway, let's take a look at another of
these martyred masterpieces.
IS IT TRUE?
Is it true that the grass grows up again after the rain?
Is it true that the flowers will rise up in the spring?
Is it true that birds will migrate home again?
Is it true that the salmon swim back up their stream?
It is true. This is true. These are all miracles.
But is it true that one day we'll leave Guantánamo Bay?
Is it true that one day we'll go back to our homes?
I sail in my dreams, I am dreaming of homes.
To be with my children, each one part of me;
To be with my wife and the ones that I love;
To be with my parents, my world's tenderest hearts.
I dream to be home, to be free from this cage.
But do you hear me, oh Judge, do you hear me at all?
We are innocent, here, we've committed no crime.
Set me free, set us free, if anywhere still
Justice and compassion remain in this world!
Could you excuse me for a moment while I replenish my supply
of Kleenex?
Okay. Now, do you see any sort of pattern in these "poems?"
It's a funny thing, but just like everybody in every prison the
world over, amazingly, they're all innocent! All those poor guys
at Guantanamo are just a swell bunch of Islamic fellows who
were minding their own business when -- oops! -- they
happened to take a wrong turn at Kandahar, wandered onto a
battlefield populated by the Taliban and were snatched up and
carried away to the island of torment where there is no justice
and from which there is no escape.
Well, except for the 267 Guantanamo detainees who have thus
far either been released or transferred to the governments of
other countries. That's around one third of all detainees and
there are ongoing processes that continue to review the status
of all the rest.
(And by the way, quite a few of the ones released have been
caught once again committing acts of jihad against, as usual,
innocent people. Will wonders never cease?)
So, can we get real for just a moment? The home countries of
most of these detainees are dictatorships where the accused
and the imprisoned have either zero or next to zero rights. And
if we can be so bold as to assume that at least some of these
guys actually are, in fact, enemy combatants and/or terrorists,
think about what they’ve done to people and what they wish to
impose on entire societies. And they have the temerity to write
weepy poetry about the loss of freedom?
But let a handful of these accused jihadists write some half-
assed verses about the unjustness of their captivity and you can
sit back and watch left-wing sympathizers write glowing
reviews, such as the following:
"Poems from Guantanamo brings to light figures of concrete,
individual humanity, against the fabric of cruelty woven by the
'war on terror.' The poems and poets' biographies reveal one
dimension of this officially obscured narrative, from the
perspective of the sufferers; the legal and literary essays
provide the context which has produced--under atrocious
circumstances--a poetics of human dignity."--Adrienne Rich
Blah, blah, blah, etc., etc.
If some of these “poets” could get their hands on Adrienne
Rich, they’d cut her throat in a heartbeat just for being a filthy
infidel. What I’m trying to say is I think maybe Rich’s
sympathies are grotesquely misplaced. For instance, was she
at all concerned about the innocent victims of the Taliban
when they operated a regime in Afghanistan that made Nazi
Germany look civilized? What about Saddam’s nightmare
totalitarian regime which filled mass graves with hundreds of
thousands of innocents? How about the barbarism that
constitutes daily life across that huge swath of the planet
known as the Islamic world?
None of that will likely enter the minds of the legions of
American peaceniks who will buy the jihadists’ claims of
innocence hook, line and sinker and will snatch up copies of
this book which to them provides further justification of their
hatred for their own country.
“At last Guantanamo has found its voice,” said Gore Vidal of
this book of “poetry.” Yes, finally, at long last. It’s too bad the
same can’t be said for all the innocent victims of these brilliant
bards.