Mission Accomplished

Armored convoys rumble through the desert
Their dull steel skin warming under the rays
Beaming down from cloudless skies, when a fire
Flickering in the distance through a veil
Of heat waves signals nascent terror. Eyes
Turn toward Baghdad as another fatal

Blast erupts. Aspiring martyrs fete all
Acts of insurrection. They would desert
Their families and friends to terrorize
Unwelcome occupiers who would raise
Democracy, but all to no avail
For would-be martyrs go from fire to fire.

A scrambling through the streets as blood and fire
Spray and spread, manifesting a fate all
Dread, while a wailing woman in a veil
Of black silk screams to the callous desert
Her impotent rage at those who would raze
Their own cities, kill their brothers, terrorize

The innocent. We can not tear our eyes
From this dread spectacle of smoke and fire.
Looming larger, as we approach, arrays
Of improvised insanity. Fatal
Fools sit somewhere smirking, snacking dessert
Of dried figs. We wonder to what avail

Is our sacrifice? Squinting through a veil
Of thick black smoke. A tear our eyes
Forswore comes nonetheless. We won't desert
Our duty, but we wonder under fire
With whom our duty lies. Visions fatal
Often come to pass, it seems, and raise

Long gray shadows of doubt, as punishing rays
Beat down on friend and foe. To what avail
Is toppling a tyrant when it spawns fatal
Retribution? When daily, stark terror eyes
Us, leaping up again in flashes of fire
Between the cities stretched across the desert?

Diurnal nightmares come to terrorize
The combat-weary faltering under fire.
What mission was accomplished in the desert?