The Corpse Exhibition: And Other Stories of Iraq

[georgephillip]

Chris Hedges has covered wars from Central America to Yugoslavia to Iraq, and in his latest column, he presents a collection of short stories written by an Iraqi, Hassan Blasim, calling it "the most important book to come out of the Iraq War."

"War spawns a peculiar, bizarre culture that Blasim lays out with precision. After the fall of the old regime, Iraqis line up to participate in a radio show, 'Their Stories in Their Own Voices,' in which survivors tell their tales of horror and suffering. Some in the crowd belittle those whose stories are not lurid enough..."

"One radio show contestant 'was a teacher who went to the police one day to report on a neighbor who was trading in antiquities stolen from the National Museum,' Blasim writes. “The police thanked him for his cooperation. The teacher, his conscience relieved, went back to his school.'

"'The police submitted a report to the Ministry of Defense that the teacher’s house was an al Qaeda hideout.'

"The police were in partnership with the antiquities smuggler.'

"'The Ministry of Defense sent the report to the U.S. Army, who bombed the teacher’s house by helicopter. His wife, his four children, and his elderly mother were killed. The teacher escaped with his life, but he suffered brain damage and lost his arms.'”

Truth or fiction or both?

Chris Hedges: The Crucible of Iraq - Chris Hedges - Truthdig

 

[Edgetho]

wut

 

[georgephillip]

wut

"Militarism and violence are diseases.

"It does not matter under what guise they appear.

"Renegade jihadists, Shiite death squads, Sunni militias, Saddam’s Baathists and secret police, Kurdish Peshmerga rebels, al-Qaida cells, gangs of kidnappers and the U.S. Army 101st Airborne are all infected with the same virus..."

"By the end of this short-story collection the reader grasps, in a way no soldier’s memoir or journalistic account from Iraq can explicate, the crucible of war and the unmitigated horror of violence itself.

Chris Hedges: The Crucible of Iraq - Chris Hedges - Truthdig

 

[Edgetho]

Find your meds yet?

Keep looking and don't come back until you do.

You probably put them in the dishwasher..... Again

 

[georgephillip]

Find your meds yet?

Keep looking and don't come back until you do.

You probably put them in the dishwasher..... Again

Don't have a dishwasher.
How about some nice star-spangled stew?

"In 'The Iraqi Christ,' a waiter mixes the names of the specials of the day with 'the names of daily instruments of slaughter.' The customers laugh. The waiter calls out orders such as: 'One explosive, mind-blowing, gut-wrenching kebab. One fragmentation stew. Two ballistic rice and beans.'"

Chris Hedges | The Crucible of Iraq