Iraqiprop

A monthly journal, Baghdad Now,
Extols recovery in Iraq.
Accounts and photographs allow
How comforts gone six years are back.

Iraqis, though, would like to see
Some bylines, ads or backers named,
And fear such anonymity
Means, of this stuff, someone’s ashamed.

In fact our soldiers put it out,
And unashamed of them we are,
Although I think of how we’d pout
If offered reading so bizarre.

For instance, what if Carlos Slim,
The billionaire from Mexico
And Times investor, on a whim
Gave total ownership a go.

And never mentioned detainees
In Gitmo cells held unarraigned,
Or inmates beat while on their knees
By rogue policemen unrestrained.

Or rival gangs in bloody spats
For turf in major U.S. hoods.
Or GOP and Democrats,
Whom on each other, get the goods.

Instead a Rodney King and cops
With peace doves on an olive branch
And Crips with Bloods in photo-ops
Enough to make the skeptics blanch.

As though a Sunni-Shi'ite bond
Is valid journalistic fare
And not another reader conned
About Who What Why When and Where.

So, from the streets and parliament,
Report the news as best you can,
Or face the cynics’ full extent,
Iraqi or American.

Then see how hard it is to lead
When no on trusts a thing you say.
Try bird dung as a barnyard feed
And watch if livestock go astray.