March 19, 2003

Guernica, Baghdad

Guernica, Baghdad B soon sister cities-to-be in airborne death...

Guernica, a vibrant town of 6000 on the Northern coast of Spain

Was bombed on Monday, April 26, 1937, by the Nazi Condor Legion

Acting under the orders of the insurgent General Francisco Franco

Hitler and his Minister of Aviation, General Hermann Goering

Had been eagerly looking for an opportunity to test the ability

Of their young pilots to wage a blitzkrieg B a lightning war

Which would create shock and disorganization on the ground

By means of speed, surprise and massive fire power from the air

The three-hour campaign was efficient, accurate and effective

Reported its commander, Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen

AIf cities are destroyed by flames, if women and children

Are victims of suffocating gases, if the population in open cities

Far from the front perish due to bombs dropped from planes

It will be impossible for the enemy to continue the war

Its citizens will plead for an immediate end to hostilities@

Guernica was obliterated. Some 2000 were killed, the rest fled

Homeless dogs roamed what had been the cradle of Basque culture

The horror suffered by its people was immortalized by Pablo Picasso

Whose painting, Guernica, helped the world begin to comprehend

For the first time in history, the barbarism of death from the skies

Generalissimo Francisco Franco was a deeply religious man

Who believed that God had selected him to assist Hitler

In returning Europe to the authoritarian inviolability of the state

Then there was Coventry, Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki

And now, Baghdad... President George W. Bush=s plan is for 3000 bombs

To be dropped on the City during the first 48 hours of his campaign

Which is to begin any time, to create Ashock and awe@ in its inhabitants

Will our leaders, will we, ever hear the primal howl of our victims?

Bibliography

Churchill, Winston, The Second World War II, Vol. I B The Gathering Storm (Houghton Mifflin), 1948, p. 214.

Lindquist, Sven, A History of Bombing, translation from Swedish by Linda Rugg, (The New Press, New York), 2001, pp. 5, 72-75 and 138.

Martin, Russell, Picasso=s War B The Destruction of Guernica, and the Masterpiece that changed the World (Dutton/Penguin, New York, N.Y.), 2002, pp. 2, 30, 32, 43, 49-51, 158, 179, 182-183, 233, 236, 242 and 267.

Picasso, Pablo, Guernica, 1937. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Bilbao, Spain.

Shirer, William, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich B A History of Nazi Germany (Touchstone), 1959, pp. 282 and 297.

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