this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war
we love and support our troops, just as we love and support the Iraqi people - without exception, or precondition, or judgment
we have no sympathy for the devil.
we acknowledge the power to act that is in us
image and poem below the fold
(RubDMC's daily intro)
RubDMC returns with his regular diary tomorrow, so this is my last diary filling in during his absence. Yesterday anniethena, who also has been filling in, posted a very moving diary here.
While preparing this diary during the past week or so, I've looked at many hundreds of photos. (For a broader view of the events and effects of the U.S. wars, I would recommend to anyone, whenever you have the time, to go to photo section at Yahoo news and look through the collections of Iraq photos, which are constantly changing.) Choosing which photos to use was very subjective, and I stored quite a few that I didn't use. Among them are some that I feel will especially haunt me if I don't share them here now. So here they are, along with what has struck me most about the people they portray.
The everyday hardships people endure in the countries our forces occupy...
| 57-year old Abas Mahmoud prepares tea on an open fire inside his home in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday Jan. 12, 2007. Iraqis have been plagued by electricity cuts and shortages of petrol and cooking oil as the Americans and the Iraqi government have failed to restore basic services to even pre-war levels due to sabotage and insurgent attacks. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) |
A woman makes her way to petrol station, to queue for heating oil in central Baghdad, Iraq, Friday Jan. 12, 2007. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) | |
| An Iraqi investigates the damage following a US raid. (AFP/Wissam Al-Okali) |
The trauma and disruption in children's lives...
Afghan widows and a young boy line up for food handouts December 21, 2006, in the Afghan capital Kabul. The aid agency CARE International gave out food to burqa-clad widows on Thursday as the harsh winter sets in. (REUTERS/Stringer/Afghanistan) | |
| Children wait for their meals inside a tent at a camp for Shi'ite displaced families in Diwaniya, about 180 km (112 miles) south of Baghdad, January 3, 2007. (REUTERS/Imad Al-khozai) |
A displaced family stands outside their tent in a camp in Diwaniya, January 3, 2007. (REUTERS/Imad Al-khozai) | |
| Two-year-old Alyssa Bernard gives a farewell kiss to her father, Sgt. Augusto Bernard, as he waits at Fort Stewart, Ga., with his family members and fellow soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment to depart for Iraq. Bernard is one of the soldiers of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division that said good-bye to their families as they deployed on their third tour. (AP Photo/Savannah Morning News, John Carrington) |
So many broken families and shattered lives, forever changed...
| Iraqis comfort a weeping woman as she walks out from the morgue of a hospital in Baghdad. (AFP/Ali Yussef) |
Men embrace after collecting bodies of their four relatives killed when their house was destroyed in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday Jan. 10, 2007. Police initially said the attack was from two mortar shells, but later a police official and witnesses said the home was fired on by U.S. aircraft on Tuesday night. The U.S. military had no immediate comment. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) | |
| Darryl Sharratt (L), with his wife, Theresa (C), and daughter Jaclyn, waits before the charges against his son U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Justin Sharratt and other Marines are announced at a news briefing outlining the Haditha, Iraq, investigation and charges at U.S. Marine Corps Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California December 21, 2006. REUTERS/Fred Greaves |
A man who identified himself as kidnapped contractor Jon Cote from Buffalo, New York, is seen in this image taken from video made available to the Associated Press on Wednesday Jan. 3, 2007. Four Americans and an Austrian abducted in November in southern Iraq spoke briefly and appear uninjured in a video believed to have been recorded nearly two weeks ago and delivered Wednesday to the Associated Press. (AP Photo/Via AP Television) | |
| Enrique De la osa Zohra Zewahi, mother of Guantanamo detainee Omar Deghayes, cries during a news conference in Havana January 9, 2007. (REUTERS) |
An undated photo of Ahmed Hadi Naji, 28, an employee of the Associated Press, whose body was found shot in the back of the head in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Jan. 5, 2007, six days after he was last seen by his family leaving for work. He was the fourth AP staffer to die violently in the Iraq war and the second AP employee killed in less than a month. He had been a messenger and occasional cameraman for the AP for 2-1/2 years. Ahmed leaves behind his wife and four-month-old twins. AP President and CEO Tom Curley said, "The situation for our journalists in Iraq is unprecedented in AP's 161-year history of covering wars and conflicts." (AP Photo/HO) | |
| Thousands of crosses stand on a hillside memorial in Lafayette, California, January 12, 2007, in honor of U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war. REUTERS/Kimberly White |
Yet people somehow persevere...
| In this photo released by the Florida Keys News Bureau, wounded veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, including Daniel Alderman, front left, and Dennet Oregon, front right, pedal their way across the Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys, Friday, Jan. 12, 2007, near Marathon, Fla. The ride down segments of the Keys Overseas Highway is a facet of Soldier Ride, staged to provide inspiration and raise funds for injured comrades recovering in American military hospitals. (AP Photo/Florida Keys News Bureau, Andy Newman) |
Residents attend Friday prayers in the rain in Baghdad's Sadr city January 12, 2007. REUTERS/Kareem Raheem | |
* * * * *
The gravestone of former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook stands at Grange Cemetery in Edinburgh, Scotland, Jan. 9, 2007. Cook was a fierce opponent of the Iraq war and an outspoken critic of the UK government decision to topple Saddam Hussein's Iraq regime, quitting his post as Leader of the House of Commons in 2003 as a result. The headstone bears the legend "I may not have succeeded in halting the war, but I did secure the right of Parliament to decide on war." (AP Photo / Danny Lawson, PA)
I Come and Stand at Every Door
by Nazim Hikmet
I come and stand at every door
But no one hears my silent tread
I knock and yet remain unseen
For I am dead, for I am dead.
I'm only seven although I died
In Hiroshima long ago
I'm seven now as I was then
When children die they do not grow.
My hair was scorched by swirling flame
My eyes grew dim, my eyes grew blind
Death came and turned my bones to dust
And that was scattered by the wind.
I need no fruit, I need no rice
I need no sweet, nor even bread
I ask for nothing for myself
For I am dead, for I am dead.
All that I ask is that for peace
You fight today, you fight today
So that the children of this world
May live and grow and laugh and play.