Requiem for an End to the War in Afghanistan

Hakim – Coordinator for Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers

“…if the fundamental military strategy in Afghanistan does not change, it may lead to further killing sprees like this, and may even lead to other September11ths”

Kathy Kelly – peace activist, two-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee

“I think that the United States and military officials would like to characterize the massacre as exceptional, sort of one bad apple. But I think it actually encapsulates what the United States presence in Afghanistan is all about.”

From Democracy Now! 

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World War Two is ending. I am a Jew, barely surviving the tight noose of the final solution in Europe. In the cold forests of northeastern Europe, I and a female friend or relative (a sister or cousin) are caught in our hiding place. Alone and scrawny with a mind filed away by a flood of unspoken atrocity, a thick-mustached German soldier enters. His damaged and sick outlook feeds off our vulnerable state as he begins taunting and undressing my friend. We fight back, as he wants us alone in his depressed desperation at hearing the end of the Third Reich nears. I am only just barely able to escape out of a basement window as he pulls angrily at my clothes, my friend wrapped tightly in his unforgiving seizure. I tear a small, tea-stained map from the corner of a dusty book. As I slip away into the cold rush of the oncoming night, alone I wander with map deeply embedded in my memory, which at the moment is only able to recall with short-term accuracy, deeply inflicted with trauma. I pass through an underground warehouse department. Small newspaper vendors stand under intensely unnatural fluorescent lighting. Barefoot, I stammer through unnoticed, my clothes torn in rags. In my mind, the map of northeastern Europe pans out into an image of the terrain northeast of Germany. There is a German-named port that I head to without mind to distance.

At the port town, I feel at maximum potential. My muscles are torn in rags, cut deeper than my tattered and frayed clothes. My tongue lolls conspicuously. People begin to empathize as I flush past townspeople and open markets. The sea is stormy, but the salt fills my blood with a renewed heat of yearning. Ever closer to the seaside, I find a ship departing for America. I board as one would glide through the unconscious fading of dream. I am instilled with unknown glory. A blooming of compassion empties my weighted heart with the immense figure of creaking wood and sail. I eagerly march aboard. I am let on without question. The massive ship endeavors out of the port into the wide, light gray fish broth of a cloud-covered fog horizon. A petite elderly Chinese lady appears at the port’s edge just before the ship splits the first wave in the open sea. Inside the ship, warm faces reflect the surrounding gray mass of shape-shifting wet form. Suddenly, I see my sister. Her face and mine glow with golden recognition. A new smile forms upon our lips, as we’ve never tasted.

Across the sea, I spend spring in the solace of a city park. The daily ground breathes with comforting life, relieving. Drifting slowly with a confident gait, my first lover enjoys the fresh air, approaching. She smiles at me, looking older, more mature and at ease. This fills my heart with unending joy. Beside me, my brother’s musician friends who we’ve known since we were children play their instruments flat on the ground like a slide veena. Their music is serene and magically rejuvenating.    

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Requiem for the 16

"A soldier
Before the end of night
16 bodies
Turn to light"

There are many reasons why I left
Now Ex-Patriot
Now divorced from birthplace

My shores?
My flag?
My history?

I extinguish all landlocked loyalty

"A soldier
Before the end of night
16 bodies
Turn to light"

Now, I have 16 more reasons
Silently, I have countless more

Where did I flee to?
Another country with a poppy war!

I'm from anywhere
Where this requiem hits home

"A soldier
Before the end of night
16 bodies
Turn to light"

Sunday, March 11 2012

The night after hearing 16 Afghan civilians (mostly women and children) are massacred by a U.S. soldier. What kind of troops are we supporting?