An al-Sadr aide, Shaikh Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji, denounced the Baghdad raid, saying 11 civilians were killed and dozens wounded as U.S. jets fired on the area while people were sleeping on their roofs amid searing summer temperatures and electricity shortages.
"This is a big escalation from the American side," he said. "I condemn all the silence toward such violations and I call for the withdrawal of the American forces."
There were conflicting casualty figures. Lt. Kadim Abbas Hamza of the Sadr City police said fighter planes fired from the air at about 3:15 a.m. and nine people, including a woman, were killed and 14 were wounded. He also said eight people were arrested. A hospital official said seven people were killed and 34 wounded.
Now that we truly see them, the people of the world,
Why are our eyes not wet in the midst of scaly grief?
Have we not shrieked in nameless terror long enough,
Been onlooker to nightmares of insensible winters
Beckoning to us from unfilled graves etched in awe?
Now that we might truly see ourselves with the world’s stale eyes
Why do we condone the enduring massacre of even one more?
Are we so goddamned fearful to not flinch of this;
Our queasy indifference?
We should be vomiting out our coldness
And ingesting the puff-tongued hunger for peace!
We need be humble and reaching
Not bombing and preaching!
Forty-seven more bomb-split, blood-spilled,
Freedom-cuffed, breath-snuffed, and killed!
Listen… You can sense the dead eating our horror,
Heed the dry bone now bleached under dawn’s collapse,
Perceive the stars and moon tremble and overlap the other.
Listen closely; you can hear immense wings clambering for heaven.
© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman
