Sorry, sorry, sorry

by Ken Sehested

We kill and bomb,
Murder and maim
Target and terrorize

Mostly (for high-tech armies) from great distance,
The better not to see actual faces
Or severed limbs, or intestines oozing through
Holes where belly buttons used to testify
To being a mother-born child

But then we apologize
Sorry
So sorry
Deeply regret
Such a tragedy!
Sorry, sorry, sorry

We do everything we can to limit civilian casualties

“This isn’t Sunday school”
(one politician’s actual words)

Didn’t have those children in our sights
Impossible to see, at 10,000 feet,

Whether Kalishnakovs are present

Smart bombs aren’t flawless
Flawed intelligence (as if a test score were at stake)
Military necessity
Rules of engagement need refining
S**t happens
We gave them advance warning
War is hell

The unintended consequences and inevitable eventualities

In hostile force-reduction and counter-insurgency

Strategic operations
(See s**t happens)

Freedom isn’t free
Do unto others before they do unto you
Asymmetrical warfare (“Why don’t they come out and fight like men!”)
No independent verification of claims of civilian massacre

(aka, no one left standing)

“This is no My Lai” (Vietnam, where as many as 504—the Pentagon says only

347—unarmed women, children and old men were killed by U.S. troops, no weapons recovered, for which one soldier was convicted, spending four months in prison)

We fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here

(which is why the U.S. needs the 1,000 or so military bases outside its borders, dozens of them with golf courses)

Won’t happen again, unless it does, then

Sorry, sorry, sorry

Video, and sentiments, at the top of the hour
They left us no option
Forced into this corner
Them or us
Hearings to be convened
We’ll get to the bottom of this
We need to wait ‘til all the facts are in

But only eyes, no heads, will roll:

Foreign-born blood being cheap as it is

If war is the answer, the question must be really stupid

As printed in Fellowship: A Magazine Of Peacemaking, published by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Vol. 77, No. 4-6