Zionist Comanders, & The Ballad of S Hussain

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday October 16, 2002 15:40 by Sydney Bernard Smith - littleredhen sydneybernard at esatclear dot ie 2 Mulholland Ave., Dundalk 042 935 1498

Satirical verse

October 2000. When asked why his men shot stone-throwing Palestinian children, Israeli officer said "What else can we do?"

Israeli Commandant Meets the Press.

What can we do? asks Zion’s head of Ops.

They lurk in slums, like cockroaches or rats;

they waste no water washing, grow no crops,

& dig no wells; they throw their pebbles at us,

they dance in rage; they’re savages; they’re spoiled;

need to be taught a lesson. We are few.

We must defend our tanks. That deadly child!

A stone? We shoot him. What else can we do?

There again we find:

The Ballad of S.Hussain

in the dim & distant eighties

well before the last hurrah,

the wicked people of Iran

had ditched their saintly Shah.

with forty million fervent

Shia Muslims on the boil

the West preferred the Sunnis

to be managing the oil.

& Rumsfeld came to Baghdad

in 1983:

"we’ll help you to stand up to

Ayatollah Khomeini;

"this letter from our President

tells all there is to say.

Ronnie & the Pentagon

will back you all the way.

"all the arms & money

that you could ever need,

& patriotic principle,

& where that fails, there’s greed."

they cosseted, supplied him

they armed him to the teeth,

lauded & hero-worshipped him;

they stoked his self-belief.

the CIA approved him

a golden boy was Saddam;

they gave him a list of lefties

& straightaway he shot’em.

he wanted something nuclear -

"it’s here! inside the gate?"

(it stayed; UN inspectors found it,

nineteen ninety-eight.)

"we know you don’t mean any harm,

- though if perchance you did

be sure we’d come & get you

& screw down your little lid.

"you’d like to use a chemical?

we wouldn’t make a fuss -

this gink is fighting on our side

he’s just like one of us!

"what’s he doing that’s out of place?

we’d really like to know -

didn’t we use agent orange

not so very long ago?"

they didn’t throw their hands up,

they didn’t roll their eyes,

they didn’t point a finger

at "evil undisguised."

they didn’t turn their face away

they never mentioned guilt -

& they didn’t just encourage him

they backed him to the hilt.

***************

Iran-Iraq fought eight long years;

about a million died -

the West was very happy

that Saddam was on on its side.

he asked Ambassador Glaspie

how the US ranked Kuwait.

said she "we’ve no position there."

thinks he: "well well! why wait?..."

& then they turned against him

for taking them at their word.

(ought one credit diplomats?

now now, don’t be absurd.)

they made themselves a demon -

no finer to be had;

& they killed a hundred thousand

in the bombing of Baghdad...

& with Kuwait set "free" once more

the human rights abuses

were twice as monstrous as before...

(Amnesty has its uses.)