ON THE LATEST NEWS OF A BEHEADED AMERICAN SOLDIER

I am not a poet...the thoughts below that manifested themselves in verse came out in verse, but I wanted to say something about the horrible video released from Iraq today, and the attempt of conservative pundits in America to extract from this tragedy some kind of moral lesson about the ongoing investigation of American atrocities against Iraqi detainees.

Violence is violence. Violence on this scale is a symptom of two things: (1) a profound lack of creativity and original thinking on the part of all sides, leaders, commentators, and participants in this war and every war; and (2) a world where the rich and powerful deploy non-rich, non-powerful human beings to fight their material and ideological battles. So long as those two conditions exist, there will be more torture, more beheadings, and worse. It just won't ever stop, no matter how many times "our troops" are deployed to stop "their violence," no matter how many needles we stick in murderers' arms, no matter how many bombs we drop, prisons we build, smart bombs we make smarter...

My heart aches, my anger rises, my mouth numbs in misery--
but not because of the side you are on...
but because you are human--
because you are young--
because you were full of life--
because you have a family who loves you--
who will die a hundred times for your one death--
not because you are American...
but because you are human.

To the pundits, the bloodthirsty cheerleaders, the sowers of hateful rhetoric:
No matter how hard you try--those of you on either side--
to convince us that there is an "us" and "them"--
an "ours" and theirs"--
framed in the context of religion, race, or chosen tactics--
I will stand against you.
I will speak against you.
I will invoke history against you.
I will not take sides in a war between hegemonic imperialism,
and Islamo-Fascism.
I will not take sides between the uncreative ruling class that invades,
and the reactionary hyperreligious, cynical class that pretends to offer genuine resistance.
I will not sanction the uncreative, old world solutions of war,
simply because you offer them as the only alternatives
to the uncreative, brutal tribalism and terrorism of Islamo-Fascism.
There is an Us and Them, but not in the way you think--
or rather--
not in the way you want us to think.

As Arrested Development sang,
"Because I exist, I resist."
There has got to be another way.
That way is found, now, perhaps,
only in speculation and song--
in protest and intimate discussions--
in imperfect blueprints and real, dirty struggles--
That way is found in the Iraqi unionists and communist workers,
who have already made overtures and built bridges with unionists and communists in Iran--
who were the first to speak out against the attempt to impose Sharia law in Iraq--
who were the only voice rejecting terrorism in Iraq and across the world,
while simultaneously rejecting US invasion, occupation, and war.

Hamid Taghvaie writes:

"The question of power can only be resolved by expelling the US forces from Iraq in the interests of the people and this is only possible by the power of the people in defence of civilisation, life and a humane society. In contrast, the nationalists and Islamists' confrontation with the USA drives society deeper into barbarity and darkness. From our point of view, the people's and the communists' fight against the USA on the one hand and political Islam and Arab nationalism on the other, is not a fight on two fronts; it is rather one unified fight in opposition to the dark scenario and in defence of civilisation and humanity. "