Wadia's best friend's youngest sister was denied a proper burial because for two
days they couldn't douse the flames the allied planes had showered on her tiny
body. And all the paper trails that lead to all the roads that lead to all these

Basras make it seem like we're all just "collateral damage" waiting to be
happened in some unforeseen Pentagon budget-drill. Today's Ba'ath regime is just
the Red Scare of yesteryear. And I drink myself to sleep because I'm losing

faith that any of us will ever amount to anything more than reluctant human
subsidies, the moving parts in a death-machine, protesting their complicity, but
waiting for somebody else to throw their body on the churning gears. I drink

myself to sleep because I'm losing faith that we, here in the Cradle of
Affluence can cease this sickening drive for individual strength through
state-powers' swinging fists or that we'll ever look back and laugh at the irony

that is: an atomic murderer is enshrined in Independence, USA while 8000 miles
from here (back in the Cradle of Democracy) it's another banner year for a
cottage industry ? a ritual at the corner of George and Constantine - as

foundries scramble to recast his decapitated monument.