Feith had the Israel-Devotion and Cheney had the juice.

LOL--AlChemy, you kill me. Dick Cheney hunting jokes and GREASE lyrics in a single comment. Awesome.

"Our own ecargo"--ah, how warm and cosy it makes me feel. "South Bend--it sounds like dahncing."

DA, you know I adore you (I do), and I agree with you on a surprising number of points, but I think you're the one being idealistic (and neocon idealism I don't buy). How surprising. You're probably right that eventually Iraq was going to melt down into a bloody mess, but who's to say it would have been as bloody and messy as what we've precipitated? You seem to be among those who think that it's pointless to keep on about how we got there in the first place. I disagree. I'd like to see some accountability. I doubt I ever will, though. (American Idol is on, after all, and news has a *responsibility* to cover, endlessly, whichever pretty blond girl has gone missing lately.)

I'm not particularly "anti-war" (in the knee-jerk sense), and, I hope, not "pious" about the opinions I hold--but I do have strong feelings about the way this war was sold, rubber stamped, and has been conducted ever since. I admit, I'm conflicted about our mideast misadventure. Now that we're there, I agree with you that we need to see it through, whatever it takes. I don't think that our "wreckless" (awesomely ironic typo) neocon cabal--the ones who made such gross errors in executing their little plan at every stage of this affair--are the ones to achieve those long-term goals, though.

Mostly, though, I'm practical and endlessly cynical about politics, and I don't think we (and I mean the U.S. citizenry and our cowardly, ass-covering politicians and our counterparts among the so-called "coalition") have the long-term will or wherewithal to achieve the kind of long-term rebuilding and "democracy building" that you're talking about. I hope I'm wrong.

As for the limp "ending," I think it was more of a sidestep. I only have so much energy.

(Her nose, by the way.)

You're in Wales, right? Is it true what they say about Cader Idris--that if you spend the night atop it, you come down either mad or a poet?

It's an old one, revamped. 3rd stanza is the one most changed, too--go figure. Maybe I should've stuck with the original! ;) (Nah, trust me, it was worse.)

I took liberties with 'damascened' (literally, metal inlayed w/another metal) and the olde-tymey language in the 2nd stanza, but, nope, can't claim that I meant to invoke "damson" and "damsel." Cool that you brought that to it though.

If I worked for Comedy Central, I'd probably have spelled Stephen Colbert's name right the first time. ;)

Yeah, Powell, the good little soldier. Not just Rumsfeld; let's not forget Cheney, Wolfowitz, good ole Scooter Libby, Douglas Feith (of whom Lawrence Wilkerson, Powell's former Chief of Staff, said, "Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man" and whom Gen. Tommy Franks called "the fucking stupidest man on the face of the earth") and the rest of the good ole PNAC neocons.

You can't handle the truthiness!

Oh, okay, just for you:

Jon Stewart: What about the most famous example of a seeming miscue by this White House. Bush in the flight suit on the aircraft carrier and then in front of the banner saying “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED”

Steven Colbert: Jon Jon Jon Jon Jon, That’s just more of your western, linear, left to right, letter in consecutive order, syllable based, banner reading. The true message was there you just had to read the letters in anagram form as it was intended “CMON I LIED. SO SCAMPISH” You wanted it spelled out for you, Jon, there it is.

hee--I dunno about that. The Wilfred Owen approach is probably more effective in the long run than the Gilbert & Sullivan approach. More memorable, anyway. ;)

Ah, Ranger, no worries. I think you might be reading more into the poem than what's actually there, though. I read it as more of a rant about the leadership who led us into this war, not so much about the soldiers over there doing a job (and not nearly as artful as my song-and-dance mock neocon punchliney "memo" from 2003 (shameless self-promotion and vote mongering: http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=137076 ). ;-D

Well, in all fairness, Dave Chappelle is behind my comment.

Gasp! Colin Powell's black?

Didn't the black delegation trade Powell and Rice for Eminem?

Oh jeez. I know I'll regret this.

Iraq did not attack us.

As for body counts, it's almost impossible to get stats on civilian casualties, whether from "coalition" action or insurgent bombs--which says something in itself about how this war is being conducted ("truth never damages a cause that is just"). It's difficult enough to get stats on our own dead/wounded. Also, while oil was not the only factor, do you really think it was not a factor at all?

You hit almost every neocon/apologist talking point in your post (linking Iraq and 9-11; opposition to the war = shitting on the troops; we're there to "make life better for the Iraqis"; "would Iraq be better off with Saddam Hussein still in power?" (currently, for the Iraqis, the answer is probably yes by all practical measures).

I honestly don't want to reargue old circular arguments, particularly on this board, but I do find the hostility toward any poems that have to do with the war a little disconcerting. So he has an opinion. So do you. So do I.

I agree with your comments on the execution of the poem, anyway.

Just tweaked a few lines. Gracias.

Since you cap the beginning of each line, you'd cap the enjambed line as well. Personal preference, really--I generally only initial cap lines that begin a sentence; otherwise, I lowercase 'em. Some people prefer to initial cap each line, as you do here. I find the latter convention old fashioned and harder to read, but, again, it comes down to personal preference.

I meant for it to stop there. ;) Actually, this is cobbled from something longer that's just not working--was hoping having this bit of it flopping around out here might help me figure out how to fix it.