Atrocities

For today’s poem, I dip my toe into the murky and controversial water of crimes against humanity. This is a subject about which most people seem passionate when it comes up, yet also a subject folks have a tendency to avoid. It has drifted back to the surface of my own consciousness of late due to some of the things going on in Iraq. When we think about atrocities, it’s usually the “big ones” like the genocide of jews by Nazi Germany. Even in more recent history, serious breaches have occurred in Africa and the Balkans, to name a few. Clearly, atrocities were committed in Iraq during the reign of Saddam Hussein, where torture and politically motivated murder were the daily fare. Let us also not forget that they used gas, a weapon of mass destruction, on their own Kurdish citizens in the north. A dear friend who served there in the Marines last year indicated that the mass graves and other brutalities discovered in Iraq make it clear that the regime had not fallen far short of Hitler’s in their and abuse of human life and rights. The attacks on September 11th, as well as other terrorist attacks on civilians during the past decade, also qualify as crimes against humanity, in my humble opinion. And now we have this new twist of kidnaping and publicly executing civilians for military purposes. While I clearly don’t condone it, I understand terrorists or militia attacking military targets and personnel. However, such a war of terror and brutality directly against civilians like this is, to me, unthinkable. It also crosses over the line into the atrocity category. Will we allow it to bend our will as it is intended to? May it never be! Rather, it should steel our collective will to overcome those who are willing to perpetrate such heinous and unforgivable acts, even against just one person. We must be willing, as a nation and as a people, to confront such people with the full force of our collective being and bring them to justice. How many times in history have we sighed deeply and said, “never again!” The world is now too small to allow such unthinkable actions to happen again and we cannot afford to turn our backs, or even turn the other cheek, when it comes to the perpetration of atrocities against our fellow human beings. No political or religious agenda justifies such activity, and no national or international borders should hide or protect human injustice or those who commit it. There simply is no other way. It may be time for the sleeping giant to awaken once again.

Atrocities
The inhumanity of humans
has plagued us through our history
We mighty, moral Homo Sapiens
with such a knack for cruelty
No matter how we train or educate
some leader rises from the throng
To perpetrate new crimes of hate
while the masses follow along
Somehow, accepting what is evil
and so clearly unacceptable
We are wooed, once more, to hate
and do what is unthinkable
We, who have evolved so far
and churched ourselves so well
Cast civil rights aside and opt
to be the very instruments of hell
Just like diseases which were wiped out
by vaccines we have made
So atrocities are laid to rest
until our memory of them fades
But when we cease to use the vaccine
diseases torment us again
So it is with human hatred
and within the hearts of men
Just when we think that we've snuffed out
what was evil and so wrong
It seems to rear its ugly head again
revitalized and just as strong
But it must not be swept beneath the rug
or white-washed in any way
And our crimes committed in the past
must be revealed still today
We must remember, we must understand
the potential of our hate
If we're to overcome our tendencies
before it is too late
In this modern world, where we
pride ourselves on civil liberties
We still allow someone, somewhere
to perpetrate atrocities
By Frank Carpenter ©