[amc] Blood Remains On the Hands
- From: "Ray Gingerich" <RGingerich@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Austin Center for Peace & Justice" <acpj@xxxxxxxxxx>,"Austin Mennonite Church" <amc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 17:54:19 -0600
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Published on Sunday, March 30, 2003 by the Long Island, NY Newsday
Blood Remains On the Hands
by Jimmy Breslin
The least blood, a small squirt when removing a needle, two drops,
that's all, no more than two drops, and suddenly it is everywhere. It remains
after all. Wipe and it returns. Look about and it is in two and three places.
Wipe those places and the blood does not go away. Two drops appear as a needle
comes out and then it is endless.
Blood from the body of a baby bombed to death in Baghdad, blood by
the pint, running onto the street as fast as a swift river, has magic in its
pure infant cells. Of course you cannot scrub the street clean because the
blood from the baby already has covered the street and is in the air.
Blood from a bombed baby in Baghdad goes over the wide choking
sands and it crosses mountains and then great land masses and then suddenly,
over a channel, it is in Westminster, in London, and people look at the
sidewalk and wonder where these large blood spots came from, and the officer on
duty in front of 10 Downing Street looks at the door handle and worries, how
did this get here without me seeing this and having it cleaned? He has a
servant rush to the door with cloth and polish and he wipes the blood and
polishes the door handles and then walks off and the guard happens to glance at
the door handle and the blood is back, smeared bright new red over the polished
handle.
The baby's blood is off to rush over the ocean, a strange red cloud
poised to rain and it floats over the green of the Washington parks and goes
down a sloping street to the State Department, where as a man opens a car door
for Colin Powell he suddenly notices blood on the door handle and he quickly
unfurls a handkerchief and wipes the handle and Powell gets in and the car goes
off and the man who held the door is left in the driveway and he sees the red
that is still on Powell's door handle.
When he leaves the car, Powell does not notice the door handle as
he touches it himself. The blood red cloud goes over the river to the Pentagon
and it suddenly pours on the car that takes Rumsfeld to an appearance, and this
time the blood is left on the door handles of both sides. A sergeant wipes. The
blood is there when Rumsfeld gets home.
The red cloud then comes down on the White House lawn and it does
more than sprinkle, it splashes the helicopter of the president and he strolls
out with his wife, his dog and his chesty walk and slight smirk and the wife at
his side is smiling, for it is the end of the week and we are good, decent
Christian people, God bless us and God bless everybody, and as they are about
to get into the helicopter, an Air Force officer rushes up in alarm and says,
please, just give us a moment, and he has three people scrubbing so quickly to
clean the blood from the helicopter and then Bush and his wife get aboard and
they fly off to Camp David, for where else would you go on a weekend, and as
they have neglected to have two men hanging out of the windows and inspecting
the sides of the craft in midair, nobody can see the blood back on the
helicopter.
As they get off at at Camp David, Bush's hand brushes against baby
blood on the plane, as does his wife's.
At this hour in London, Blair arises in the middle of his long
night and goes to the bathroom to try and wash this blood off. He couldn't do
it before he went to bed.
In Washington, Rumsfeld stares at the red splotches on both his
hands and Colin Powell calls out that there must be something wrong with the
soap because it does not get the blood off his hands.
At Camp David, Bush notices blood on his right hand and he goes to
the bathroom to wash it off and he holds his hands under the water and rubs
them with a bar of soap and then puts them under the water and he takes them
out and holds them out to dry with a towel. He glances at his hands and sees
the blood of the dead baby is bright on his fingers. He mutters and washes the
hands again.
He will do it again. Again this year and then next year and through
all the years because the blood remains forever on the hands.
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
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