Guernica (The Cover Up) Outcry 12-08
(The Cover Up) 7-1-2007 and 10-18-2021
Guernica – smashed in ’37
By bombs raining down from heaven
A cynical test of the Axis’s might
No one questioning wrong from right
The world howled with indignation
At the perfidy of the German nation
While the United States pretended
Those hostilities would be quickly ended.
But Picasso’s mural powerfully set
That memory so we would not forget
The horror that comes when bombs do fall
Annihilating people and animals all.
So here’s a symbol for the whole world to see
Except- Picasso decreed in Spain-
As long as the dictator Franco reigned.
A mural which depicted graphically
The extent of Guernica’s catastrophe.
In 2003, the die long cast, the decision made
Saddam’s Iraq to forcibly invade
The problem it seemed was how to sell it
For the man on the street responds to logic.
But alas the spooks were coming up short
With solid evidence that would hold up in court.
No problem here—we create a story
Of Saddam’s role in 911’s ghastly gory
Of anthrax bombs and mushroom clouds
Unleashed on our unsuspecting crowds.
The message repeated for all to hear:
We’ll protect you from your darkest fear.
So at the UN Powell arrives to cook
That phony intelligence book
But, look what’s there
For the camera’s eye to see:
But a full-length majestic tapestry
Of Picasso’s Guernica looking down
At Powell’s face in a tortured frown
So how could Powell make
His presentation
Justifying a bloody invasion?
In front of a symbol of war’s barbarity
Expressed with such gut-wrenching clarity.
So Powell cannot deliver that pack
Of lies with that reminder at his back
No, no this juxtaposition of a city destroyed
And the senseless slaughter
Of husband, wife, son and daughter
Guernica must go—this just won’t do
So it was covered up with whole cloth of blue.
And with this done Powell proceeded
Despite reservations he should have heeded
To make a case with stove-piped data
Showing Saddam evil and in construction
Of weapons of mass destruction
That evil man (but our man once)
Was out to get us and had Al’Queda ties
As Powell proceeded to compound his lies.
And yes there was urgency on Powell
To sandbag the UN’s inspection process
Because you see it was successful and
Near to clearing that hated man
Of having illegal weapons
And thus lifting the ban
Of those immoral sanctions
Sanctions incidentally that are said
To have killed half a million children stone cold dead.
And with the ban lifted Saddam would then control
The worlds second largest puddle of oil.
So good soldier Powell did what he was told
And spewed forth lies right bold.
Which he later acknowledged as bad
When with time he realized
He’d been thoroughly had.
Yes, with the story brightly varnished
His reputation is permanently tarnished.
And because of this came shock and awe.
The prettiest little war you ever saw.
As Rumsfeld extolled weapons of unparalled precision
Which compassionately justified the decision?
And with which we are able to manage
A humane war without collateral damage
A war so brilliant and without any muck
It reminds us now of a zipperless fuck.
A war so sterile and clean it might even said
It’s a war so perfect we’ll have no dead.
In covering the mural Powell covered the truth
That Guernica happened with innocents dying
And that when done with his sordid lying
We’d be at war with Iraq our garrison
Making Guernica’s pain trivial by comparison.
Now four years later Powell is contrite
And says that things were not just quite right.
The worst day of his life it seems–
For the ends really don’t justify the means.
Yes he covered up the mural
As he covered up the truth:
And Iraq’s in ruins–
That’s surely no spoof.
Howard P. Charman, MD 5-1-2007
To Outcry 7-1-2007
Thoughts: Powell’s February 5, 2003 UN speech is a key justification for launching the Iraq war. His assistant Lawrence Wilkerson who wrote much of the talk states they were skeptical, but that George Tennant at the last minute supplied them with fake faulty intelligence. Susan Lindauer a CIA and DIA asset with knowledge of Iraqi and Syrian intelligence in Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act And the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq) states she presented her cousin Andrew Card with information refuting everything Powell said in that fateful speech. The same information was presented to Powell. Chalmers Johnson describes the talk to the effect that “ and then every word the man said was a lie. And George Tennant stood behind him like a potted palm to give credibility”. KPFK Radio Archives and YouTube videos.
Then finally we speak with one of America’s premier military experts William Arkin, who co-authored the landmark “Top Secret America” investigation and is the co-author of the national best-seller of the same name. He joins us to discuss his latest book “Unmanned: Drones, Data, and the Illusion of Perfect Warfare” and how our security is undermined by the impulse to gather too much data and that by using drones to avoid putting our troops in danger, we put the rest of us in more danger. BB 7-30-2015
Added: 10-18-2021 on the day of Powell’s death at 84 of complicaetions of COVID, Parkinson’s and multiple myeloma. Maureen Dowd; NYT 2-5-2003. Powell Without Picasso. Too much of a mixed message, diplomats say”….”Tomorrow it will be covered and we will put the security council flags in front of it”. “Mr. Powell can’t very well seduce the world into bombing Iraq surrounded on camera by shrieking and mutilated women, men, children, bulls and horses.
Peter Maas: The Intercept 10-18-2021: colin Powell was a Nice Man who helped destroy Iraq.
John Schwartz. The Intercept 10-18-2021. Lie After Lie: What Colin Powel Knew about Iraq 15 years ago and what he told the UN.
Of relevance:
WH Auden
Let us honor if we can
The vertical man
Though we value none
But the horizontal one.
He white washed the My Lai massacre in Viet Nam.
Just as we believe American exceptionalism, we also sanctify our “heroes”….
Howard P. Charman, MD 10-18-2021