AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

Hawk's Nest

The loss of history. The state of permanent amnesia.

And then there were none.

And a blank, self seeking drama settled on the face of the Earth, well Australia.

Recycled policy ideas. Migrants to be put out into regional towns. Um, we tried that before. Jobs and growth. Um, we tried that before.

Announcement after announcement after announcement.

All availing nothing.

The Prime Minister never shut up. A prancing horse dazzled by his own reflection. Agonising to watch. The country had turned off. Defeated, it was almost as if they accepted the blame for their own demise. For the loss of spirit, optimism, determination.

And the hypocrisies of Australian democracy grew ever worse.

I can still smell the filth, the lingering odour of death (think vomit plus defecation) that seeped up from under fallen masonry blocking the street. I can still see, in the houses, the scattered detritus of clothes and baby toys, the remains of lives torn apart by horror. No glory there, watching Iraqi people dying senselessly while our planes flew overhead. None, either, amongst the confusion of militias, each attempting to rule their own tiny patch of land according to the one true faith, whichever it happened to be at that particular moment of time; Shia or Sunni, Orthodox or Catholic, animist, nationalist or, when all else failed, simply a lust for power and money.
Pick a flag. Green or red, black and gold, the tribes held them all. They could be seen, flapping limply around hastily-erected poles as we passed through rival checkpoints on the way to war, manned by boys nervously groping their AKs or M16s. Children too young to hold a woman; too undeveloped to make love; unable to marry; yet old enough to kill.
So no, I won’t be marching, although I do respect old soldiers who choose so to do. It’s just that I feel no need to "remember" war, let alone legitimise the politically-inspired industry that’s being built around such "commemorations" by leaders and business. These are always ready to jump on the back of genuine emotion and hi-jack real concerns for their own purposes or needs.
Anzac Day Why I won't be marching this year, Nicholas Stuart, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 April, 2018. 

Australian bombs helped to make those corpses.
While a grinning corpse of a Prime Minister launches another policy.
Another arms race.
Another debacle.
And the country itself slowly dies.
A democracy in name only.

MOSUL, Iraq — Nearly a year after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared this war-devastated city liberated from the Islamic State, a putrid odor still fills the air from thousands of corpses left in the rubble.
The bodies of both civilians and Islamic State militants can be found throughout Mosul, once Iraq's second-largest city, abandoned in bombed-out buildings, tossed in roadside rubbish heaps or discarded in and around the Tigris River.
“The sight and smell of these corpses is a constant reminder of our darkest days,” said Ayoub Thanoun, 26, a pharmacy assistant who now helps neighbors clear debris. “A large number of bodies are scattered in the houses, gardens, squares and even in some of our mosques.”
Ahead of the May 12 parliamentary elections. candidates here plant their campaign banners atop piles of brick and stones, most from ancient buildings now destroyed.
“The politicians are holding electioneering feasts on top of the bodies,” said Shihab Ahmed, 28, who lives in the Bab Lagash district, where most working-age males were tombstone engravers before the Islamic State invaded the city in June 2014. About 100,000 people once lived in Mosul’s 1-square-mile Old City before the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, occupied the neighborhood. The United Nations estimates that more than 90% of the district was demolished in the fighting.
“I’ve spent my whole life in the Old City. And while there are many historic buildings officials need to preserve and protect, the government should do something to help the volunteers who have been working so hard to clear the corpses out of this neighborhood,” Ahmed said.
The task of removing the bodies is dangerous.
“Often the bodies of ISIS fighters are just dumped in a place. And when we come to lift and remove them, we find they’re still strapped to explosive vests or there are bombs hidden in the piles of corpses,” said Omar Mohammed, 30, an Old Mosul resident.
Smell of death fills Mosul nearly a year after Iraqi city freed from ISIS, Mahmoud Al-Najjar, Gilgamesh Nabeel and Jacob Wirtschafter, USA Today, 2 May, 2018.

THE BIGGER STORY:




Archaeologists discovered the remains of more than 140 children in Peru, children who they believe were sacrificed because of heavy rains.
Their skeletons were found on an excavated site formally known as Huanchaquito-Las Llamas — ground that was controlled by the Chimú Empire some 550 years ago, reported National Geographic in an exclusive published on Thursday.
Researchers believe that both boys and girls between the ages of 5 and 14 were killed by expert hands. The victims appear to be from different ethnic groups and were brought to the bluff from faraway places in the Chimús' vast empire.
Peruvian archaeologist Gabriel Prieto, who grew up in the area, was excavating an ancient temple there in 2011 when people who lived near coastal dunes told him they were seeing bones.
"We started the excavation the same day," Prieto told NPR from Peru. "I remember in the first hour or two hours we found like 12 or 13 complete bodies and from there we knew we were in an important site and that we had to call other archaeologists because it was beyond our possibilities at the moment."