[News] Dead Iraqis Occupy Wall Street

Fri Jan 6 16:22:22 EST 2012

DEAD IRAQIS OCCUPY WALL STREET

             With the war in Iraq now officially 
over and the Occupy Wall Street movement less 
visible, life in New York was expected to return 
to normal. Instead, several recent passersby in 
Manhattan’s financial district have reported 
seeing thousands of deceased Iraqi civilians 
taking up residence at Zuccotti Park. The park 
served for two months in the fall of 2011 as a 
protest base for thousands of OWS activists.

             Although the Iraqis remain largely 
silent and immobile, some witnesses claim to have 
seen individual deceased mothers, students, and 
the elderly holding up the backs of old pizza 
boxes, on which have been scrawled the English words, “Remember Me.”

             Public reaction has been mixed. Some 
say the dead are “occupying” the park in 
nonviolent protest; others accuse the Iraqis of 
faking their own deaths in order to flout U.S. 
immigration laws. The Bloomberg administration, 
having evicted hundreds of living protesters from 
the park in mid-November, has thus far maintained a wary tolerance.

             “I’m not sure we can give twinkles 
to this new batch of malcontents,” stated Mayor 
Michael Bloomberg at a press conference 
yesterday, wiggling his upwardly pointing fingers 
in the OWS sign of agreement. “But so long as 
they don’t discourage business as usual, New York will allow them to stay.”

             “In your face, Bloomberg!” shouted 
Sally Street, an Occupy movement protester 
interviewed in an atrium on Wall Street, where an 
activist meeting was taking place.

             “Just let the cops try and bust 
these Iraqis,” continued Ms. Street, one of 
Zuccotti Park’s recent evictees. “These folks are 
impervious to pepper spray. They don’t mind the 
cold weather. They never sleep, so they don’t 
need blankets or tents. And they’re clearly not 
going to bug the local merchants to use their 
bathrooms. Hey, this is what democracy looks like.”

             Other OWS protesters greeted this 
statement with downwardly wiggling “de-twinkle” 
fingers, to express disagreement. “Why do you 
have to be dead in order to occupy public space?” 
queried Mike Check, frequent presence at the OWS 
General Assembly. “I mean, if these Iraqi dudes 
are supposed to be, uh, no longer with us, how come they’re still with us?”

             “Maybe we need them here,” called a 
lone voice somewhere amid the crowd. “Maybe, if 
we want the Occupy movement to last, we’ve got to 
see the ordinary people our government has killed 
all over the world as part of the 99 percent.”

             According to an unofficial count, 
the number of deceased Iraqis inhabiting Zuccotti 
Park is around 126,000. Interestingly, this 
figure coincides with the conservative estimate 
of Iraqi civilians killed as a direct result of 
military violence since the war began in March 
2003. Other sources claim the Iraqi death toll is 
well over 1,000,000, not counting another 500,000 
Iraqis, mostly children, who died due to earlier 
U.S. economic sanctions against Iraq.

             “Oh, who cares how many of those 
ne’er-do-wells expired?” remarked Marge N. Call, 
financial analyst whose condominium is near 
Zuccotti Park, and who had strolled by walking 
her daschund. “It was bad enough when living 
Americans were drumming and defecating here, but 
dead Arabs? Even if they’re clean and quiet 
they’re much more annoying, morally.” Ms. Call 
walked briskly away, neglecting to clean up her dog’s leavings.

             “This is also an insult to the 3,000 
Americans who perished so tragically on September 
11,” added Eustace Tilley, prosperous 
man-about-town, who frequently appears on the 
cover of The New Yorker. Mr. Tilley, who 
spearheaded “Bless Our Bull,” an ad hoc committee 
to protect the Wall Street “Charging Bull” 
sculpture from anti-capitalist vandals, explained by crunching some numbers.

             “If you divide 126,000 by 3,000, you 
get exactly 42. That is the greater real value of 
each of the people who were lost at the World 
Trade Center, compared to the unwashed Iraqi 
dead. Please note that the value of those who 
died on 9-11 increases almost exponentially when 
you factor in additional numbers of ordinary 
civilians killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan 
because of U.S.-sponsored military ventures.”

             Perhaps it is because they feel an 
affinity with others of low market value that the 
Iraqi dead keep entering the country. Stories 
have begun circulating that some of these Iraqis 
are migrating to various foreclosure sites, and 
sit silently among former homeowners and Occupy movement protesters.

             Accounts such as these are, to many 
politicians, cause for alarm. “Isn’t it obvious 
these – things – are illegal aliens?” asked 
Republican Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum. 
“As soon as our backs are turned, they’re going 
to reproduce. Their little zombie terrorist 
anchor-babies will grow up to demand voter ID cards and burn our Bibles.”

             Anonymous White House insiders, 
however, describe such opinions as shortsighted. 
They add that the U.S. is lucky to be hit with an 
occupation of the Iraqi dead, and not the Iraqi 
living. “Imagine what we’d have to deal with if 
the 3.5 million Iraqis made refugees by the war 
were to come here,” speculated one source. “We 
wouldn’t have the faintest idea what to do.”

             In quick agreement, the other 
anonymous White House sources responded with a 
unanimous flurry of twinkle-fingers, earnestly waving skyward.

                                                                             © 
Susie Day 2012

References:

End of Iraqi to war:

<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/world/middleeast/panetta-in-baghdad-for-iraq-military-handover-ceremony.html>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/world/middleeast/panetta-in-baghdad-for-iraq-military-handover-ceremony.html

Occupy Wall Street guide:

<http://www.nycga.net/resources/general-assembly-guide/>http://www.nycga.net/resources/general-assembly-guide/

Occupy Wall Street hand gestures:

<http://boingboing.net/2011/12/17/occupy-wall-street-hand-signal.html>http://boingboing.net/2011/12/17/occupy-wall-street-hand-signal.html

Iraqi dead + other costs of war:

<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-hughes/iraq-war-in-retrospect-to_b_1172380.html>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-hughes/iraq-war-in-retrospect-to_b_1172380.html

http://costsofwar.org/article/iraqi-civilians

<http://www.iraqbodycount.org/>http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

Over 1 million Iraqis dead:

<http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/1-over-one-million-iraqi-deaths-caused-by-us-occupation/>http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/1-over-one-million-iraqi-deaths-caused-by-us-occupation/

UNICEF report on Iraqi sanction deaths:

<http://iraqwar.org/childunicef.htm>http://iraqwar.org/childunicef.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/072100-03.htm

Eustace Tilley:

<http://www.newyorker.com/online/covers/slideshow_tilleycovers#slide=3>http://www.newyorker.com/online/covers/slideshow_tilleycovers#slide=3

Wall Street Bull:

<http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2011/12/29/wall-street-bull-kept-behind-barricades-despite-community-pleas>http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2011/12/29/wall-street-bull-kept-behind-barricades-despite-community-pleas

Occupy foreclosures:

<http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/occupy-our-homes-wall-street-squatters-foreclosures>http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/occupy-our-homes-wall-street-squatters-foreclosures

Iraqi refugees:

<http://costsofwar.org/article/iraqi-refugees>http://costsofwar.org/article/iraqi-refugees

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