Sixty-seven years ago today the Enola Gay dropped ‘Little Boy’ on Hiroshima.  Inspired by this stunning piece by Anthony Freda, I wrote the following piece two years ago.  My hope is that you don’t mind me reprising it on this solemn anniversary; I updated it a bit.

(ThisIsTheEnd by Anthony Freda, via wendydavis @flickr, by permission)

From this plane in The Afterlife it’s impossible for me to know where my essence hovers; whether it is hell or heaven…or just an in-between place I have created from my imagination.  I sense, more than see the local Universe; the tug of the pull from a black hole causes a sensation at the back of my head…or at least the place…that might have once been my head.  The sounds that emanate from stars almost unimaginable distances away resonate inside me, providing diversion at times from the over-arching images that dwell within me like live beings and sometimes cause my phantom legs to move with their rhythms.  At times they are like the giggling and chattering of the glass wind chimes our uncle brought us back from China; at others like black bells gong… gong..… gonging…the single, reverberating note becomes a lamentation of death.   At first the iron bells feel coldly portentous; in time they grow increasingly warm…then hot, as I begin again to feel and see the red…the brilliant gold…the fire…

…of this molten mushroom from hell, growing and expanding from the initial hoops of light energy, then rising and growing, folding in on itself, boiling, roiling…rising to the heavens as if bragging about our power over nature…  Prometheus unbound!   In our intellectual hubris, did we unconsciously create this monster in defiance of the gods?  What will be our punishment, and will all mankind share our resultant penalty for all eternity?

In this place I reside for now, time shifts easily, and my awareness often slides to that day at Trinity, and I see the man I was then.  I seem doomed to remember him musing, “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one…”  Oh, Lord Shiva; imagine my hubris; our collective hubris!  That fateful day, our glasses were not enough; we threw up our hands against the flash, protecting our eyes as we might thrust crosses toward vampires, sneaking peeks until the first flash resolved into the steaming organic shape it became as it grew: first half a melon, then roiling and undulating as it grew out from its stem…higher and fuller, golden red and beautifully hideous… spreading into a molten vegetable gone mad.  How is that you didn’t stop us then?  From this destruction, there could come no resurrection, no restoration!

When the star-songs are more melancholy and the imploding suns pull at me, images of burning people in Japan fill my awareness; their screaming mouths are silent, thank the gods…the falling debris makes no sound…light so bright that shadows on a sidewalk were often all that were the only record left of a human turned into…vapor.  None of us had ever anticipated such a thing; how could we have, and kept the project going?  Oh, Mr. Suzuki; you should not have uttered ‘Mokusatsu’!  Perhaps the bombs would never have been unleashed if you had been clearer…and asked for more time to consider surrender.

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While 95% of the nation’s attention is focused on economic and fiscal matters, I thought it would be a good time to turn our gazes to matters military and ask:  What did we learn about the War on Terror this year, Firepups?  Well, let’s see:

We learned that even though a majority of us have turned against the wars, our leaders are the adults in the room, and believe that War Leads to Peace, and they mean to spread around… a lot of Peace.

We learned that Generals who promote and enact failed strategies can rise to the top as long as they command decent PR COIN spin from the MSM & Next-gen COINTELPRO; ‘You can trust your war…to the man who’d like five stars.’  (not to mention your CIA)

We learned that bombing a nation does not constitute war if US soldiers aren’t being shot at, and that civilian deaths are known in military jargon as bugsplat, and that we kill far more splat than bug with our bombs, but that if the operation assessment guesses that fewer than thirty civilians might be splat to the one bug, it’s A Go!  We learned that ISAF forces have prioritized the safety of ‘our’ troops over the safety of the indigenous civilians, and that hearts and minds are won with baskets of hundred-dollar bills rather than…that other thing…oh yeah; getting the hell out of Muslim nations that believe we are the scourge of the world, unrepentantly contaminating their Holy Lands, partnering with despots and criminals in the name of American Empire claiming their resources.

We learned via Hillary’s BFF, Harold Koh that the President has the God-given right to assassinate pretty much anyone he wants, as long as a couple of ‘reliable’ folks tell him they deserve it.  And that includes American citizens; no partiality shown.

We learned that the new face of war is antiseptic and targeted, conducted from consoles in Nevada and other faraway locations, and that  civilian casualties only count when enough of a body remains for it to be identified; and the corollary is that most drone bombs don’t leave much evidence, which keeps civilian body counts…low.  But we have learned to clean up our messes.

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(art by permission of Anthony Freda @ www.anthonyfreda.com) While 95% of the nation’s attention is focused on economic and fiscal matters, I thought it would be a good time to turn our gazes to matters military and ask:  What did we learn about the War on Terror this year, Firepups?  Well, let’s see: We learned that even though a majority of us have turned against the wars, our leaders are the adults in the room, and believe that War Leads to Peace, and they mean to spread around… a lot of Peace. We learned that Generals who promote and enact failed strategies can rise to the top as long as they command decent PR COIN spin from the MSM & Next-gen COINTELPRO; ‘You can trust your war…to the man who’d like five stars.’  (not to mention your CIA) We learned that bombing a nation does not constitute war if US soldiers aren’t being shot at, and that civilian deaths are known in military jargon as bugsplat, and that we kill far more splat than bug with our bombs, but that if the operation assessment guesses that fewer than thirty civilians might be splat to the one bug, it’s A Go!  We learned that ISAF forces have prioritized the safety of ‘our’ troops over the safety of the indigenous civilians, and that hearts and minds are won with baskets of hundred-dollar bills rather than…that other thing…oh yeah; getting the hell out of Muslim nations that believe we are the scourge of the world, unrepentantly contaminating their Holy Lands, partnering with despots and criminals in the name of American Empire claiming their resources. Read the rest of this entry →