Iraq War Syllogism - 13 Poem by Raj Dronamraju

13

Who left the cages open at the Baghdad Zoo?
The birds and game animals taken for food by the desperate populace
Some of the others escaped into an unsafe jungle populated by the wide-eyed victims of warfare
An unsafe jungle of semi-demolished buildings and roving gangs of looters

The uproar is loud in reaction to the plight of the surviving animals
People react with indifference at reports of dead people, dead children
But cruelty to animals will mobilize the Westerner

The death of a Bengal Tiger will create a movement
The deaths of scores of civilians is two minutes on the evening news

We have grown tired of people
We will worship cats and dogs
And cannot visualize the number given for dead foreigners
We can't see the dead Iraqis
We assume they are all enemies
With their funny language and brown skin
With their Abrahamic religion just like our Abrahamic religion (but we don't want to talk about the similarities; only the differences)
They do not deserve our sympathies