Najaf
Six feet under
August 26, 2004
iranian.com
A rebel cowers under a pockmarked headstone with
his name on it, metaphorically of course, for it belongs to a fellow
felled
long ago by Saddam. Six feet under the dead stir as bullets
rattle and shower their graves. The thud of boots upstairs, the
shuffling
and cursing remind the deceased that not even they can have
peace in the new Iraq. Quite where Bush and Blair get it from is
a
wonder; perhaps another item in their Wal-Mart cart. It is
better now than it was under Saddam, they repeat, as the living
weave
among the dead, both buried and not, to escape defeat. Blood
stains a patch that belonged to a soul who had a name before
its headstone was smashed. His identity forgotten, a corpse
is strewn above him only not washed, if also rotten. No earth up
there to contain his stench, though. No time for burial. Americans
serve up death faster than burgers. A drive-in where orders
are
not taken, only given, and enough ketchup to drown a town - is
anyone counting the dead anymore or was that just for when Saddam
was in power? A cemetery drenched in blood is one where those
interred are, for a change, better off than those who are not.
Rites are not due to these dead any more than rights are to the
living. This is the rule of the occupier. How baffled they must
be wrapped in shrouds, locked in coffins to think the lives they
left behind are being torn further apart above; the Old Town
forced to age beyond its years as the world’s most powerful
army assails a mosque sheltering a glutton of a mullah - useless
but for feasting and fatwas - turned hero. (To escape
a foreign thug people consult the local.) Another rocket drops
into a home, a mini-ground zero. Boots thud upon plots, reviving
earlobes for a spell so that the dead too can hear a hell they
had not imagined.
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