Maybe it takes a rhyme scheme to cut through the media-induced amnesia that shrouds postwar American foreign policy. Tunesmiths are invited to set these verses to music. (And here’s a shout-out to Prof. Stephen Eisenman, whose recent CounterPunch posting directly inspired this poem.)

How vigilant the state must stay
To keep all wicked things at bay.
One has to be a touch abusive
To shape a world one can make use of.
For death and destruction we never take blame
“Collateral damage” is our middle name.
The liberals might bitch and moan
But to paraphrase old Al Capone
While diplomats parse treaty addenda
It’s gunboats that best convey the agenda.
Of our foreign meddling, here’s a brief list
Kindly forgive me for what I have missed.

There’s Guatemala and Sudan
Not to mention far-off Pakistan.
Grenada was a small affair
That left their nutmeg in our care.
We marched into Afghanistan
Then returned it to the Taliban
When there was nothing left to bomb
In that Central Asian Vietnam.

LBJ sent many a well-armed gringo
To quell the grave threat from Santo Domingo.
And Nicaragua felt our wrath
When they pursued a different path.
Another Cuba? No way, amigo
The first one still stings our fragile ego.
Seven decades of embargo!
Let Castro keep his commie cargo.

Korea, Cambodia, China too
Was that such a Laos-y thing to do?
The Asian masses made some folks nervous
By culling the herd, we did a great service.
Ingrate Panama, you want your Canal?
Oh, the hurt that brings to our morale!
We need something to salve our pride
How about a mini-genocide?

Somalia – tell me, what was the issue?
Newsmen still can’t pronounce “Mogadishu.”
El Salvador, Iraq, Iran
Remember bombarding Lebanon?
Gaddafi was murdered to make Libya free
Now slave markets function for all to see.
Yemen, though feisty, is really dirt poor.
But for Lockheed and Boeing, it’s still worth a war.
Serbia got smoked – proving, of course
That the answer to conflict is still-greater force.

Greenland – so sorry; you appear out of luck
Our flag will soon fly in the streets of fair Nuuk.
Your offshore deposits, how sweetly they call us
What’s above must be ours, including each walrus.
Which brings us to poor Venezuela’s plight
Our shock troops came down like a thief in the night
To snatch the first couple – out of pure spite?
Yes that, and the fact that our own crude oil
Somehow got buried beneath foreign soil!

So we do what we can to make all wrongs right
And to liberate every hydrocarbon in sight.