To go after the insurgent
By bombing his mom's house
And by murdering the neighborhood children
Knocking out power and destroying water works
Disabling escape routes
And choking off life lines
Punishing a population
For a criminal loose in its midst
Punishing a population
Because of what they really think
Of the punishers…
They have a right to defend themselves!
In Lebanon, it's not what you have done
But what you haven't done -
That gets you punished.
You have not taught your people to forgive
The lessons of years of vengeful destruction.
The loss of family and loved ones,
The rubble of your homes,
The decimation of your society
You have not taught your people
To love the rod that brands them
They have a right to defend themselves!
It is interesting to note
That the word "defend",
As harmonized throughout
The kingdom of TV news actors,
Those happy pigeons whose jerking heads
Gleefully express the term
As if they were agreeing upon the flavor
Of the bread crumbs scattered in their path…
Has come to mean "attack"
But then we have been made to understand
That lasting peace is created only
By the preemptive strike of war
They have a right to defend themselves!
You died in my arms.
I held your soft torso
As your detached legs fell to the ground
torn from your young body
While you played on our living room floor
I could feel the liquids of your life
Gush out on my slacks
And our eyes met in incredible sadness -
A sadness whose chasm rips through my soul-
And then you were gone from my life forever
They have a right to defend themselves!
In my agony I tried to put the pieces
Of your broken body back together
My eyes so blurred with tears
That I lost you in the carpet
So saturated with limbs, blood and organs,
Fingers here, intestines everywhere
And a beam of glaring light
Shined like a beacon
From its neat round opening in our ceiling
To where my beautiful wife was just now sitting
Laughing at a silly joke I was telling -
And then she was gone -
Disintegrated by the exploding missile
And I should forgive?!!
They have a right to defend themselves!
Our cities lie in ruin
Our lives in shambles
No food, no water, no power
No exit, no surrender
We await the fearsome display of might
For the punishers to teach us
That we are dying for our thoughts
We are dying for our memories
We are dying for the land beneath our feet
We are dying for the fear
In the minds of our invaders
They have a right to defend themselves!
Fire does not extinguish fire
You can scorch the earth
And annihilate a people
But the memory of your act
Will fuse like glass beneath the flame
And retribution will haunt your days
As the specters of those innocent slain
Will stalk you in the form of
Heartbroken mothers and angry sons
Who live now only to make you feel
The pain that they are suffering
To make you know the horror their eyes have witnessed
To share with you the sadness in their hearts
They have a right to defend themselves!
But understand the terms
Terms clearly written in the records of Law
From the Magna Carta to the Geneva Convention
The rules of war and occupation
Have been bent medieval
Erasing the progress of civility
And driving back diplomacy
To the interrogations of the Inquisition
Or the barbecuing of babies by
Christian crusaders whose feasts of horror
Reverberate in the odors of burning flesh
Wafting once again upon this ancient plain
They have a right to defend themselves!
Might is not right but we've seen it work before
The primitive weapons of native Americans
Were no match for the musket ball.
The Stone Age Aztec succumbed
To cold Spanish steel.
But the Muslim world is not so ill equipped
And the blood will run deep on both sides
Anger and pain and vengeance
Will provide the fuel to ignite the region
And in its turn,
Light the fire that consumes the world
