…and when, then, the imagination is transmogrified
in circles of hatred, circles of vengeance
and killing, of stealing and deceit? Behind
the global imperia is the interrogation cell. It’s not
a good story. Neither the Red Crescent
nor journalists are permitted entry, the women tell
how men and boys are separated, taken in buses
and never seen again, tanks in the streets
with machine guns with no shells in the barrels
because the army fears that those who will use them
might defect. Who knows what has happened,
what is happening, what will happen? God knows.
God knows everything. The boy? He is much more
than Mafia; he, and his, own the country. His militias
will fight to the death if for no other reason than
if he’s overthrown they will be killed, too. “Iraq,
you remember Iraq, don’t you?” she shouts,
a refugee. Her English is good. Reached via Skype,
she speaks anonymously, afraid of repercussions.
“You won’t believe what I have seen”—her voice
lowered almost to a whisper—“a decapitated
body with a dog’s head sewn on it, for example.”
Yes, I know, it’s much more complicated than that.
“It’s the arena right now where the major players are,”
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs concludes
his exclusive CNN interview. Dagestan—its province
in the North Caucasus—is what the Russians compare
it to, warring clans, sects; Lebanese-like civil war
will break out and spread across the region. Online,
a report—Beirut, the Associated Press—
this morning, “28 minutes ago. 4 Said to Be Dead
at Syrian University,” one Samer Qawass,
thrown, it is said, by pro-regime students
out of the fifth-floor window of his dormitory room,
dying instantly from the fall…