OPERATION `DESERT STORM'

	by Kevork K. Kalayjian, Jr.


	(for those who can make the ultimate sacrifice)

	Contrary to popular belief there is no good war or bad war.
	There is no 'good' or 'bad' in the first place.
	This is an attempt to take you out of the boundaries of
	virtue, and evil, to a new horizon a wider perspective.

	Please be careful and don't assume that I might
	be fair, unbiased, educated, unprejudiced, or
	any other meaningless thing like that.
	Of course I am prejudiced!
	I still salivate on the sight of naked breasts,
	as long as they are of the size
	to fill up the curves of my palms.

	It's not my fault you see,
	I was born in Armenia,
	where we didn't have baby formula,
	so my mother had to breast-feed me
	till I was the age of three
	and at that age I was big enough
	to arouse my father's jealousy.

	It all happened, this prejudice thing
	when I had a chance to overhear
	my grandfather's conversation
	with a friend who had survived
	the concentration camps.
	"You are lucky,' he said,
	"to have an enemy like the Nazis
	you are very lucky! At least the German people
	accept the wrongdoings of
	their leaders, they compensate the
	survivors. They do something to alleviate the pain.
	Whereas the Turkish governments still deny the Genocide
	They deny the fact that they massacred the Armenians, and
	right in front of our eyes, day-by-day, they remove the
	traces of Armenian existence within the occupied lands.'
	Yes give me an understanding enemy
	and there will be an exemplary war to watch
	give me an enemy, which still has
	some human characteristics so
	I might create a good war.

	That was the conversation between
	the genocide survivor and the holocaust survivor
	as actually overheard on earth or in the heavens.

	This war is not about democracy,
	freedom, or self-determination,
	and it is not about weapons of mass destruction.
	This war is about beliefs.
	A set of beliefs maintaining that everything
	which is done in the name of this religion
	is better, superior, and all-powerful. Beliefs,
	which declare that everything out of this religion,
	are shameful, corrupt decadent, and ugly.
	And
	another set of beliefs, which insists
	that whatever is red, white, and blue,
	is right, just, and faster than a speeding bullet.
	A belief which maintains that with the proper
	delivery of the colors on the TV screen,
	the words, and the subliminal suggestions,
	you can be convinced, that I am right.
	And after you have been convinced that I am right,
	we will reiterate the point by quotations from
	the experts at our think tanks.
	A belief, which upholds that advanced robotics,
	precision technology, and superior destructive capability,
	can overwhelm any other belief system.

	Within these spectrums of beliefs, we have been saturated
	with waves and variations of thoughts; we have become
	receptacles of beliefs, which mold our thoughts for us.
	God forbid we should have a thought of our own.
	God forbid we should utilize our own thinking process.
	No! It's all printed, it is graphically presented
	in color, on the screen, all over it's so easy
	it's 'help yourself' take whatever you like
	don't take whatever you don't want! So you see
	it all comes down to "want" or "don't want"
	instead of "to think" or not, "create" or not.

	Why else our government
	did not declare war on Turkey,
	when that country occupied Armenia?
	Why else we did not declare war on Turkey
	when the Turkish troops invaded the island of Cyprus,
	and conquered half of that island?
	Why else we do not have sanctions against Turkey,
	when Turkish generals use napalm bombs
	to kill their own Kurdish citizens,
	they continue to deny the crime against humanity
	the crime of genocide!
	The rights of the Armenian minority
	are violated every day?
	Their churches destroyed
	cemeteries obliterated any proof
	of their ancient existence eliminated.

	Why do we still regard Turkey as a valuable ally?
	Because ...
	we choose our enemies according
	to race, color, religion, political affiliation,
	wealth, geographic position, and sex.

	Speaking of sex, the better the more!

	At this instant when we are fighting
	for the liberation of Kuwait.
	and the elimination of weapons of mass destruction,
	Yes, sometimes we have to remind ourselves
	what we really are fighting for.
	So now when we are fighting
	for the liberation of Kuwait and not
	for the destruction of Iraq,
	about a thousand miles north of Basra
	Azerbaijani Turks are trying to displace
	a handful of Armenians from their homeland,
	the mountainous region of Karabagh - Artsakh,
	they already accomplished their ethnic cleansing in Nakhichevan.
	There are killings of innocent Armenians in Shahumian
	the Armenians of Sumgait and Baku have already been killed or deported!

	Who can pronounce these names anyway?
	Too bad! Our geologists have not discovered oil there,
	their uranium deposits in the mountains are insignificant,
	and they do not even have any holdings in our stock exchange.
	So our TV screens need not be crowded with these sad facts
	we have more just causes to pursue.

	For all of you who seek justice,
	and you think you deserve the assistance
	of this 'super power', next time you are born
	make sure there is something under your land
	oil, uranium, gold, or something like that.
	Or, what the heck, just get born at a time
	when we are ready to test on the field
	our new generation of surgical destructive toys.
	But wherever you are born
	make sure they have enough baby formula!
	as there might not be ...
	mothers with breasts anymore


	01/21/1991

--
Kevork K. Kalayjian, Jr.  A graduate of the AGBU's Melkonian
Educational Institute, Nicosia, Cyprus, holds a B.A. in Political
Science and Economics from Fairleigh Dickinson University, Rutherford,
NJ, a M. Ed.  Counseling Psychology, from WilliamPaterson University,
Wayne, NJ, and CPA requirements completed at Pace University,
NYC. Kevork resides in NY with his wife Maral, and three sons Aramazt,
Tro, and Ohanes. A descendant of survivors of the Genocide from the
town of Kilis, in the Cilician region of Armenia, an accountant by
profession, he likes to paint and write. His next project is to
collect the names of 100 volunteer Armenian-American families who
would like to resettle in Armenia and jump-start a new way of work and
life there. Some of his poems have been published in literary
periodicals such as "Ararat" and at www.poetry.com.