The US and ISIS: Karma’s Chameleons

illustration: Elena Caldera

The Republican
Party in America
Would have you believe

That if dinosaurs
Had had guns they’d have been spared
Their mass extinction.

The Democratic Party
Is equally retarded –
Waging war for peace.

Washington’s phallus
And Congress’s white breast
Suit their pornocracy:

The tall Monument
And the Congressional dome
Are icons that serve

An armed pornocracy
That makes most of its money
From weapons and porn.

It persuades itself
It has the moral high ground
Despite its killing

Some thirty million
Since the Second World War
From its thousand bases.

A democidal
Maniac has roamed the earth
Mouthing about God.

Its narcissism
Is boundless. Thanks to Hollywood
It has filmed itself

Killing, and killing,
And killing, and killing, and killing,
And killing, and killing.

Such repetition
Risks a hostile reaction
From the rest of the world.

The law of karma –
‘Do as you would be done by’ –
Can’t be avoided:

US drone attacks
Massacre wedding parties
With robot bombs.

Suicide bombers
Are consequently programmed
To bomb US bases.

‘Yanquis Go Home!’ crowds chant
And ‘Death to America!’
Then 9/11

Sees towers topple
And the New Yorkers’ skyline
Is rendered toothless.

The US terror state
Sows the seeds of more terror
Since death’s good for business.

‘Indispensable’
Is how it describes itself,
Yet death cults can die.

Empires come and go
And disposable cultures
Have a sell-by date.

‘We are the good guys,’
The United States insists –
While doing evil:

Its daily drone attacks
Have killed and injured thousands
In Afghanistan.

Ten thousand air strikes
On Iraq and Syria [1]
Invite a response.

Nine Muslim countries
Have been targeted and bombed –
Hence the blowback.

ISIS acquires guns
Supplied by the US
And kills Americans.

“The first of a storm”
Says ISIS after Paris
And its mass murder.

Now ISIS will target
Washington – it has said so.
Few surprises there.

‘Swords into ploughshares’,
Our philosophy suggests.
Will we ever learn?

Heathcote Williams

[1]  https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2015/01/07/us-drone-war-2014-in-numbers/