Special Friends (2007)
A man is judged it is often said
By the way he treats his friends.
Being always there through thick and thin
With a bond that never ends.
Stalwart and true we all admire
Such loyalty and caring
As we observe through the years
This unconditional sharing.
Taking care of your own at whatever cost
Measures a man’s resolve
To do what’s right for special friends
No matter how things devolve.
So it warms my heart to see the young man
Follow in his father’s exemplary path
By freeing a man who has managed to earn
The entire world’s righteous wrath.
Herman Ricardo and Freddy Lugo
Planted the bombs discretely
And at Barbados they succeeded completely
In blowing Cuban flight 455 out of the air it seems
Along with Cuba’s entire Olympic fencing team.
Luis Posada Carrilles and Orlando Bosch
Planned and schemed I do not josh—
For America’s spies—the firm;
On a project of great concern;
To kill the man the right has hated
For holding views it must be stated
That pierced the myth of our superiority
And shattered our seeming invincibility
Who closed the brothels run by the mob
And opened the casinos to any old slob.
These two it seems were in the lead:
And engineered this dastardly deed
And the message sent back it said:
“The bus has arrived and the dogs are dead”
Signaled they had blown the plane out of the air
Creating havoc, chaos and much despair
For the families and those befriended
By those whose lives were cruelly ended.
.
And Orlando’s a hero in Little Havana
Set free by Bush senior in a flagrant manner
At Jeb’s urgent request for political reasons
For Bosch’s friends are influential and seasoned
The judge freed Carrilles – the government erred
And the man is out there now free as a bird:
Awaiting trial for trivial immigration lies
And truth out the window flies
For the real story is hidden you see,
Is that Carilles is blatantly free
And that within our midst
We support world class terrorists.
Bush promised to hunt them
Where ever they were
But the real message the president sends
Is that this applies to all but his special friends.
Terrorism in the name of our democracy
Exposes America’s flagrant hypocrisy.
Unfortunately, history makes it abundantly clear
We’ve been doing such things
For four hundred years.
So our story on this upbeat note ends:
A man is judged by how he treats his friends.
Howard P. Charman, MD