Posted by Benjamin on: 02.08.2008 /
I sense a little anger here. It’s a kind of heartbroken anger–tears threaten to come.
So back on December 15th, 2 beautiful, delightful little Iraqi children in Karbala. Died. Blown Away. By a U.S. made and U.S. deployed cluster weapon. found. in. a. play. field. They thought it was some kind of toy.
How long have we known that these weapons blow. up. little. children. for. years. after. they. are. deployed.?
At least 40 years.
I wrote about it on this blog.
And I’ve been waiting around for weeks hoping upon hope to find out their names when Iraq Body Count finally caught their database up to december 15th of last year.
But of course, it is not to be. Like some overwhelming majority of the hundreds of thousands of innocents who have died in Iraq, their names weren’t found out by IBC. It only made it into their incidents database. No names.
I shall not even be allowed to know the names of these beautiful children who were killed by *my* nation, *my* army, *my* weapons manufactured by *my* fellow citizens in a factory on *my* native soil.
Maybe if I keep talking about this, almost everyone will keep mostly ignoring it.
Someone should build a proper memorial to all the innocent people the U.S. has killed over the last half century. Maybe that’s impossible. Something like a gigantic statue of a CBU-87, right in the middle of the mall in Washington D.C. as tall as the Washington monument. with hundreds of thousand of tiny dead child statues all over the ground underneath it. That would work. That would be perfect for my mood today. It could be a sort of national shrine. We could all make a pilgrimage to it every year, or something.
Leave a Reply
Comment by: joe
1 02/8/08 3:01 AM | Comment Link |Can you expand why knowing names is so important to you, B?
Comment by: Benjamin
2 02/8/08 9:29 AM | Comment Link |Joe,
There’s a great question!
My first reaction is: I’m not *totally* sure. It’s more of a gut thing. I need to think about that a little.
I think it may touch on the humanity of the victims, and the importance of story inside my paradigm.
Anyone else feel that importance of names thing? Anyone else who could elaborate on it?
Comment by: Julie Clawson
3 02/8/08 12:05 PM | Comment Link |amen
Comment by: Helen
4 02/8/08 12:13 PM | Comment Link |Maybe you want to know their names because you’re hoping that if their names were known, that would make the people who don’t seem to care, care more.
Comment by: Benjamin
5 02/8/08 6:30 PM | Comment Link |thought about this more today. I decided I want to know the names of the people I kill.
Comment by: Rachel
6 02/9/08 6:20 PM | Comment Link |It seems to be a kind of a basic human impulse to want to voice the names of the fallen. So often when a memorial service is held or a monument is dedicated after a tragic event, the names of the victims are read aloud, one by one. I remember that happening after the Oklahoma City bombing and after 9/11. On television news, they often recite or show the names of soldiers who have died “to honor the fallen.” We even have this tragic monument “The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier” and they have even exhumed the bones before still trying to identify them. And in some cultures it is considered a terrible fate to be buried in an unmarked grave.
I think that we don’t keep track of or identify the names of our war victims for the same reason we don’t have public executions. If we had to see them or be continually reminded of them, these practices would be exposed to the light and would be revealed as the great evils that they are. Thanks for continuing to shine the spotlight, Benjamin. Never stop.