"the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."---- Samuel P. Huntington


River Churning

A young girl from Brittany
stands on tiptoe as she learns to pirouette
on her ballet shoes.
She loves icecream, the circus and the Champs-Elysees.
She watches the children laugh
And wonders why.
She did not yet know about freedom,
But maybe
in time she will learn that some mothers are
Happier watching Clark Gable on TV,
And that not all shoes hurt
And not all of them turn into Parisienne symbols
Of an unliveable life.
Why do you cry for her?

A young girl from Trang Bang
Whose name meant golden happiness
Who did not know of nations and nationalities
Of war and napalm bombs
That make for good photographs framed by golden lava
Stood with her brothers and sisters
Under a cruel sky
She ran alone
way back in good old 1972,
No brothers no sisters
As the molten gasoline burned a tatoo
On her Vietnam skin.
Why do you cry for her?

A boy from Karbala,
He loved kebabs and Bollywood,
And kites and cricket and freedom
One day the tanks rolled in
One by one, and the boy stood and watched them come,
They promised him some fun.
The boy stood under a blue cloudless sky
Watching the great planes swoop down,
And knew in that moment that a pilot he would become
Smiling down at the world, conquering the skies
And watched a world erupt around him
And painted the Iraqi sky a dirty red.
Why do you cry for them?

They paid for a multitude of sins, that were ours to make
And for the children in a fawaway land
Where they make Ray-Bans and Barbies and
TV commentators comment on the sun and the sand.

Will you cry for them?