The Crows Call: White Headstones to Clunk, Thud

I began my day at the peaceful sea of white and green, and it was amongst the saddest moments of my life. Arlington National Cemetery - it’s a wonder what self-sacrifice will get you. A few feet of grass, a dinky headstone and a broad-brush monument or two? Really?

Our politicos promise quitting with the same reliability as junkies. Every war ends others, and every battle is the ultimate. “Just this one hit, and no more, man. Then I’m off the needle.”

More than any stone and statues, maybe if the promises of peace were kept, I’d have felt differently at Arlington today. But shit, I can’t look at the place with anything but loathing when too many new stones will be added for too many more decades.

My day ended with seeing the full execution of Saddam Hussein, shot with a cell phone camera.

It’s ultimately meaningless on all accounts, despite what Zeyad says.

I still wonder, if you asked all Arlington’s resting if their sacrifice was worth it, what they’d say?

Unwarranted apologies

Zeyad finally showed up at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism after leaving Baghdad and spending three months in Jordan. I showed him where the offices were. Hey, it fulfilled my one good deed of the day.

In case you’re wondering, Blog Jarvis described Zeyad as:

the amazing blogger behind Healing Iraq, a founding father of the Iraqi blogosphere

A classmate and I had the opportunity to spend some time talking to Zeyad today, and I was overwhelmed by the urge to apologize. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and say, “God dammit man! I can’t imagine what you’ve seen or felt, but I’m sorry we lit the fuse on the firecracker!”

I really wanted to apologize for being the dumb, “Support our troops” and Freedom Fries American. For not being able to point out Baghdad on a map.
Zeyad gave me some peace by telling me the war is beyond America now. He might have said that just to make me feel better. Or he could be right.

In the bombings in Baghdad on Thursday, a roadside bomb that exploded about 7:30 a.m. near the mosque in the Cairo neighborhood killed three people and wounded 16 others, the Interior Ministry official said. About 9:30 a.m., a suicide car bomber detonated a bomb near police vehicles whose tanks were being filled at a gas station in the Karrada district, killing 10 people — some of them police officers — and wounding 17, the official said.

At 10:45 a.m., two more people were killed and 23 wounded when a second suicide car bomber exploded a bomb in the Bab al Sharji district, a mile north of the gas station, near the Interior Ministry’s headquarters. At 3:30 p.m., a third suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle in the Kadisiya neighborhood near a police convoy, wounding seven police commandos, the Interior Ministry official said. At 7:15 p.m., a roadside bomb killed a woman and wounded 13 others in the Amil district.

On Wednesday, Ahmad al-Mashhadani, nephew of Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, the speaker of Parliament, was abducted while driving his car in northwest Baghdad, the Interior Ministry official said. Also on Wednesday, a roadside bomb killed two people at the funeral of a Shiite militia leader.

I wonder if Zeyad’s as upset about news like this being buried as I am. I wonder if he realizes just how embedded we are in a bubble of ignorance.

It’s here that our news media, even the Times, has become impotent. They all need a solid brass set and a double dose of Viagra.

Maybe that’s where Zeyad can help.

I was surprised to find out that no one gave him a New York Salute yet. That would be this: