Do not risk triggering the collapse of the building until there are two teams with the proper equipment.
We move on to do as our trainers have taught us to do.
What will we talk about today, you and I? I do not want to talk about last Saturday. Shall we talk about peace? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet, you and I, we are not at peace; we are not even at truce.
It must be that my brother’s team has arrived I see him standing surrounded by people and pointing and giving orders. I ask my question and he shrugs despairingly. We move on to do as our trainers have taught us to do. Others of us arrive. We organise ourselves and the people who want to help, showing them how to clear rubble, and pulling the wounded and dead people out. The two other experienced ones and I move back to the stalls.
Where are the ambulances? Where are the police? Will the Americans stop the cars and buses and vans carrying the wounded and the dying to the hospitals as they have done so often before?
The “police” and their American masters arrive. They “secure” the scene. Perhaps they are happy now that their work has been done for them.
A bombing during a “crack down” follows a set procedure. It is a stepped process that works like this:
Step Zero:
Prevent people Sunni, Shia, Christian, Jew, Arab, Kurd, Shabak, Turkman, or Yezhidi – it does not matter which – from searching for bombs. This is the preliminary and most important step.
Subsequent Steps:
Get a report of a really big and worthwhile bombing. (Wait …….)
Wait some more.
Arrive too late to be of any use to the most badly wounded.
Look busy and important and “secure” the area.
Search the ambulances very very slowly. (Make sure your American masters see how thoroughly you search.)
Make sure you stop the cars and buses and taxis belonging to the people who live there bringing the wounded out. (Make sure your American masters see how busy and important you are.)
Search the cars and buses and taxis belonging to the people who live there bringing the wounded out very very slowly. (Make sure your American masters see how thoroughly you search.)
Introduce force to any sand nigger who does not leap to obey your American master.
What will we talk about today, you and I? I do not want to talk about last Saturday. Shall we talk about peace? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet, you and I, we are not at peace; we are not even at truce.
Showing the helpers how to pick up the pieces of human flesh. Put your hand inside one plastic bag and pick it up. Drop it into the plastic sack. Move on to the next piece. One of them has not done this before; his hand is shaking so much that he drops a piece of dead human flesh to the ground. But before I can get to him another whose face I recognise from before moves to him and shows him how to do it properly. They stay together, the experienced helping the new. The first time is hardest. The new one’s shoulders are moving up and down as he works. He stands up and runs to a stall; his helper runs after him. His helper’s hand is upon his shoulder. My brother calls out:
O God! Pardon our living and our dead, the present and the absent, the young and the old, the males and the females.
They go back to work.
O God! Pardon our living and our dead, the present and the absent, the young and the old, the males and the females.
Lips moving with each piece that they pick up and put into their plastic sacks.
O God! Pardon our living and our dead, the present and the absent, the young and the old, the males and the females.
What will we talk about today, you and I? I do not want to talk about last Saturday. Shall we talk about peace? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet, you and I, we are not at peace; we are not even at truce.