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from 14 october 2001 blue vol II, # 6 edition |
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I had seen the beggar before but not under such extreme conditions. The wind chill index stood at six below, and as I paid the drug store clerk for my own cold remedies, I decided to slip a buck in the guy's cup on the way out. There's no way to avoid him tonight, I thought. There's a war on, and he's between me and my car, a legless black man about my age. Probably a Nam vet. They all came back missing something. Now he's blocking my way, obstructing my escape. Doesn't he have a pension? What's he doing, spending it all on crack? Wine? "Did you see the news today?" he asks. "Did you see what they're doing to our boys?" He's talking about the captured pilots downed over Iraq. He's telling me how he would retaliate. He's flying low over Baghdad as I walk across Walgreen's parking lot. He is swooping in for another kill. We are all prisoners of war. Captured on a pedestal inside a plexiglass box in room 224 of the St. Louis Art Museum is a well-guarded piece of Iraqi civilization. The fragile earthenware bowl from the 9th century A.D. depicts two camels and a rider. If not for its age, Dr. Suess might be the suspected artist. The modest figures painted on the bottom of the ochre vessel appear almost embarrassed to be displayed among more ornate artifacts from Islamic neighbors like Turkey and Iran not to mention nearby displays featuring Asian art sculpted in India, China and Japan. The bowl is safer here now than the city of its origin, Baghdad, where some anonymous potter shaped it a millennium ago during the reign of the Abbasid family.
Today, images of Iraq's present despot are being used for target practice in Columbia, Mo. Doug Grindstaff, co-owner of Target Masters, claims to be selling five times more of the effigies even though they cost three times as much as the generic silhouette target. "Its worth it. I'd rather be shooting him than anybody else," one woman told the Associated Press. Other ballistic images detonate on television screens across the country. Missiles zero in. "Smart bombs" hit their mark. A prime-time armored menagerie of Warthogs, Eagles and Wild Weasels have been unleashed on America's living rooms. By Jan. 22, the sixth day of war, The Desert Storm command felt compelled to issue a public disclaimer before broadcasting repeats of the prior day's air strikes. "This is not a video game... This is a very deadly game," a camouflage clad officer named Lautenbacher told the assembled press corps. Despite Lautenbacher's warning or perhaps because of it the Nintendo War has been born. This is all a contest of hand-eye co-oridination, one for which our young pilots have been practicing since childhood. "We are being damaged and killed like the people of Iraq are from the outer space," said Khalid-Al-Shewaish, Iraqi charge d' affaires Jan. 21 in Washington, D.C. The day after the war began, on page four of the Jan. 17 St. Louis Post Dispatch, the headline read: "Twinkies On Way To The Front." Continental Baking Co. in St. Louis was sending the last of one million of the cream-filled snack cakes to our men in Saudi Arabia. Somewhere on the open sea a shipload of Twinkies steamed toward Arabia as the first bombs fell on Baghdad. There's one thing I agree with concerning President Bush's Middle East policy. Bush, Dubya's father, says: "This will not be another Viet Nam." by C.D. Stelzer
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A tale from the War before this.
Caliph Harun ar-Rashid ruled Baghdad during part of this time,
when Islamic civilization spread throughout Western Asia, across
North Africa and eventually into Spain, the first arabesque
encroachment upon Western designs. Rashid plays a prominent role
in One Thousand and One Nights, the Arabic literary classic. The
hotel, Al-Rashid, from which many Western journalists filed their
initial war reports, bears the same name as the late potentate.