The Angry Leviathan

The war in Iraq, has it ever ended? When 100 planes are said to have unleashed their bombs in sovereign territory (No fly zone? Call it what you wish, it’s still Iraq) then what is it if not war? When ‘sanctions’ – or what in former days was known as ‘siege’ – cause children to go without food and medicine, what is that if not war? The war has never ceased. What the Bush administration is talking about is finishing the job by evoking the flames of hell. And yet the tiresome inertia caused by months of watching nation after nation bend to the will of the Angry Leviathan, has made us all torpid and punch drunk. We can hardly get up the energy to resist. And so we watch as the Angry Leviathan begins to roll once more, unstoppably, crushing anything in its path. We shrug and say ‘Too bad.’ It’s like helplessly watching a gigantic tornado. Realising nothing can be done, you duck and run for cover. This Angry Leviathan is man-made but not made of man. In former days it would have been the heart-rending realisation of our failure to appease the wrath of God. Now it’s just some more rancid shit that’s hit the bloody fan.

11/09/2002