Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names » Banking on Saddam?

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June 09, 2003

Statues demolished by bulldozers portraits rendered in bullet holes U.S. rulers in Iraq print interim dinars bearing the purple-and-yellow plundered face of Saddam Hussein Fearing counterfeit Saddams nobody wants to touch the inherently worthless declarations of paper anarchy face value reminders wearing Saddam’s smart jacket and tie Barbed-wire barricades flanked by soldiers fueling hysteria across [...]

Banking on Saddam?

by HAMMOND GUTHRIE

Statues demolished by bulldozers
portraits rendered in bullet holes
U.S. rulers in Iraq print interim dinars
bearing the purple-and-yellow
plundered face of Saddam Hussein

Fearing counterfeit Saddams
nobody wants to touch the inherently
worthless declarations of paper
anarchy face value reminders
wearing Saddam’s smart jacket and tie

Barbed-wire barricades flanked by soldiers
fueling hysteria across the monopoly board
10,000-dinar notes are legal tenderizers
gyrating on postwar influx of desperation
rendered into dinars to purchase dollars -

though I wouldn’t bank on it.

HAMMOND GUTHRIE is the author of AsEverWas: Memoirs of a Beat Survivor. He is the editor of the great online journal The 3rd Page. He can be reached at: writenow@spiritone.com