Thursday, May 14, 2020

Solferino ~ Thursday, 14 May 2020

Dropping atomic bombs | ended the war quickly | and Japan surrendered, 
remembering two dates | in August, 6 and 9, | almost like rolling dice, 
only our victory | smells like bitter almonds | if the tables were turned, 
pretend Philip K. Dick | imagined our demise, | our capitulation, 
pretend the Japanese | had dropped atomic bombs | on Washington D.C., 
if the Capital were | devastated, destroyed, | 9/11 would be 
nothing new, no real loss, | not compared to Japan, | one hundred thousand plus 
given as statistics, | a low-ball estimate | of total people killed. 

As atomic bombs dropped | on both Hiroshima | and on Nagasaki, 
the world reeled in horror, | except the scientists | in the U.S.S.R., 
onward to The Cold War | both the United States | and the Soviets found 
means to develop bombs | of great capacity | for total destruction, 
in 1983, | WarGames was a satire, | to show movie-goers
creatively, how war | plays out in a bunker | with simulated games. 

Bombs supplied with Napalm | destroyed Greater Tokyo | in firebombing raids, 
of the devastation, | as a means to an end, | civilian lives were lost, 
military tactics | chose urban areas | in strategic bombings, 
but the morality, | if the tables were turned, | and we were aggressors, 
still is controversial, | as to firebomb major | cities during a war 

over Los Angeles, | San Francisco, New York, | and Washington, D.C., 
no one here would question | their own indignation, | as we did not after 

the attacks on New York, | and Washington, D.C. | on 9/11, no...
horrified, indignant, | we rebuilt and attacked, | no questions of our past, 
evident to scholars, | correlating events, | CIA operatives...

We question the war crimes | of foreign countrymen | and their military, 
how academic is | it to question ourselves, | our culpability 
in events that lead up | to 9/11, and | other significant 
tactical strikes against | our forces overseas, | to ask such a question 
engages the horror | inflicted upon us, | and inflicted by us. 

How we avoid questions | at all costs, and our role | in global peacekeeping, 
our armed forces engage | in missions we would not | accept from other lands, 
under the Geneva | Conventions we agree | to relief agencies 
shouldering the wounded, | humanitarian | treatment of prisoners, 
exactly what we dropped | after 9/11, | in pursuit of justice. 

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