Literary Critique of “War and Truth”

In “War and Truth” (also available in Spanish) Alicia Ghiragossian, Nobel nominated Armenian-Argentinean poet brings to light many human rights issues that the recent Bush administration inflicted upon Americans and the international community. These issues involve the administration’s and FEMA’s reprehensible reaction to hurricane Katrina, increasing foreign anger around the world that discriminates against America, discriminating Iraq as the place to create a false war and to wage Bush’s irrational agenda, creating propaganda similar to that used to promote genocides in history, and initiating systemized torture. As she so powerfully, poignantly, and truthfully recounts in the soulful landscape of the book, there were, and still are, many issues of discrimination that have lingered from the Bush administration. The book bears considerable relevance today after the release of the Torture Memos on April 16^th by the Obama administration which now unfortunately proves Bush’s legacy of human rights violations. Dr. Oscar Arias Sanchez, Nobel Peace Laureate, said about the book and Alicia’s illuminating perspective that: “She is an eloquent witness to the enduring human quest for peace.” As a voice for truth and justice the book is a reminder for all those who distrusted the Bush regime that they were ultimately right in their disdain for a government now factually proven to have committed many human rights violations and major discriminations.

The book begins with a soulful account of the 9/11 terrorist attack and then begins to discuss the discrimination issues regarding Katrina:

“Of New Orleans…

The city you let submerge

Under water.

What was that?

Didn’t you like the status

Or the color of those people?

They were Americans like you

So why rescue them with guns?

And treat them like prisoners of war

Why were they arrested

For trespassing

In their own houses?

Whose spirit did you want to crush?

Although incredibly painful and difficult to read, the poet expresses a raw truth for thousands of people who were voiceless during the aftermath of the hurricane. It is the actions of a government that count in times of crisis, and clearly in this disaster thousands of people were forgotten. Her reference to rescuing them with “guns” and treating them like “prisoners of war” also reflects the distrust law enforcement and officials had in these communities of the New Orleans area, many of which were African American. Therefore, she poses a great question: “why the guns?” and one may also add “why the disrespect?” These questions reveal many issues which speak to the improper discriminatory responses that these officials and law enforcement had in a time of crisis. The question must be asked: why there so much distrust and indecency shown for the population of that area? Treating the victims of this disaster as dangerous and criminal is injustice and transparent discrimination which to this day leaves the area in shambles and lacking the potential it could have reached given proper federal aid in 2005. Everyone should ponder the questions the poet poses as to why the costliest and deadliest natural disaster in US history, killing more than 1,600 people, displacing more than 1 million, and causing more than $25.3 billion dollars in damages (About.com US Politics) received such a despicable reaction and treatment. The Bush administration did not only crush the spirit of those affected by the hurricane, but of all Americans who sympathized and empathized in sharing the burden of the disaster.

Furthermore, regarding the massive lies of the Iraq war, weapons of mass destruction, and the now proven illegal torture, the poet makes a clear and emphatic statement saying that instead of lessening the anger toward the Americans and our place in the world, the Bush administration increased it. She writes about our false trust in the government: “We expected you to dissolve foreign anger against the country, yet you increased it.” The Bush administration did nothing to promote our better values and only increased discrimination against America as an imperialist and a war monger, damaging the good efforts of innocent Americans everywhere. The poet in her genius revelation of the Bush administration’s agenda declares that the American ideal became Bush’s egotistical “I-deal” of massive brainwashing, corruption, confusion, and war. In their quest to impose their self-centered “I-dealings” the Bush administration buried the internationally respected “legal authority” and “civil liberties” of America under a massive lie and myth in order to have his war. Is this not akin to the Third Reich the poet asks:

“We had the atomic era.

The time for Hiroshima.

We have the oil era.

The time for Iraq.

What happened

With civil liberties

And our tradition

Of legal authority?

Why barter those blessings

With this supremacy myth

To remind us the leaders

Of the Third Reich?”

The answers for readers everywhere are clear as they are haunting. Our rights, America’s standing as a nation of laws and justice did indeed get “bartered.” She continues the brilliantly accusatory and perspicacious section by explaining how the lies of the Bush administration grew into a propaganda monster denouncing all those that spoke up for the opposite and for truth as anti-American. This of course is discrimination against all those seeking justice. She writes that this discrimination, in order to bolster their claim for war, for torture and for bartering civil rights is the same corrupt mentality used countless times in history for genocides and other wars:

“It seemed tailor made

In the past

For a genocide

To exterminate millions

With impunity…

It seems tailor made

In the present

For tortures

Rape of dignity

And trampling

Human rights.”

Therefore the poet in her deliberate, direct, and profoundly raw style denounces this discrimination imposed by the Bush administration against all those trying to speak the truth. She likens them to the other radicals in history that used lies and corruption to promote and succeed in their evil agenda; and it is the way the Bush administration protected their “right” to torture. Countless Arabs, Muslims, and international individuals of “interest” were made scapegoats and discriminated to fulfill Bush’s terrifying agenda for oil and power in Iraq and sent to be tortured in Guantanamo. The New York Times, in April 2009, reported that water boarding was used even before Justice Department lawyers “approved” any interrogation techniques. As citizens, our own privacies of the 4^th Amendment, through the wire tapping that occurred, were “bartered” and because of this our dignity as a people of the free world “raped” by a discriminatory and delusional administration.

Furthermore, in addition to the physical losses of bartered rights and the casualties of civilians and military are also the countless “possibilities,” she says, that were lost. She writes:

“Will humanity and justice ever prevail? Again

My child did not go to war.

I have not lost anyone.

But haven’t I truly

When my country has lost

so many

and So much…

Don’t we all lose

A little of something

When human beings vanish

Before fulfilling their dreams?”

Many politicians, pundits, and journalists have talked about the legacy of the Bush administration. War and Truth, written in 2006, is a timeless voice of truth and justice that reminds us, however painfully, that Bush’s legacy is one of major and disgraceful discrimination that separates itself from the true ideals of the United States of America. From the victims of Katrina, to the attacks on human rights, to those barred from speaking the truth so many years, to the recent revealing of the “legalized” torture, the administration left nothing but a trail of destruction and demise for American values and in so doing damaged human dignity for every one discriminated against nationally and abroad. To read the full book War and Truth/Guerra y Verdad please visit www.poetalicia.com.

By Robert Danielak