Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Disturbing the Peace
El Jones
26 Nov 2025
🖨️ Print Article
Colin Powell and Dick Cheney
Colin Powell and Dick Cheney Photo: Jose R. Lopez, New York Times

Written for the protest at the Halifax International Security Forum, November 22, 2025.

Dick Cheney’s finally deceased
He died at home in peace
He lied about WMDs 
And murdered millions of Iraqis

Don’t forget Guantanamo Bay
Where he sanctioned torture night and day
All for the oil that got him paid
He shot his friend right in the face

And if you refuse to mourn these ghouls 
Who brought death, destruction, and abuse 
Who even cut off baby food
They’ll try to get your job removed

Henry Kissinger lived a century 
Outside the penitentiary 
A war criminal incidentally
Who should live on in infamy

Instead, in his obituary
They sung his praises tenderly
His crimes are wiped from memory 
But we’re labelled the enemy

Inside where warmongers sip champagne
They named a prize for John McCain 
Who led civilian bombing campaigns 
Another war criminal who should be shamed

But it’s you and I who face arrest and trial 
Ehud Barak is in the Epstein files 
He raped young girls on Epstein’s isle
Virginia Guiffre died by suicide

Yet he’s invited here to speak 
A rapist genocidal freak 
Exposed like all the other elites
Who sit inside and laugh and feast

On all the wars they dream up next
To keep their boots upon our necks
They know warmongering pays their checks 
They traffic bombs and lies and sex

And they should all be in a cell
As a prelude to their time in hell 
Instead they lounge inside hotels 
And backslap other clientele

Who pledge loyalty to Israel 
And sign their names upon the shells
That land on hospitals and wells 
Eternal war is what they sell

And yet they label us extreme
For protesting their war machine 
And millions of dollars to police 
To stop us opposing their regime

The least we can do is show disgust 
And refuse to keep their horrors hushed 
The babies’ skulls that they have crushed 
They murder everything they touch

And justice never will be served 
Perhaps by God in another world 
But don’t we find it so absurd 
They die in peace and undisturbed!


El Jones is a poet, journalist, professor and activist living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She teaches at Mount Saint Vincent University, where she was named the 15th Nancy’s Chair in Women’s Studies in 2017.

 

imperialism
US War Crimes
Dick Cheney

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Pambazuka News Editors
TĂĽrkiye, UAE, and the Imperialist Chain: African Ports and War
30 September 2026
Imperialist competition and wars that facilitate extractivism have long shaped the use of seaports for access to resources, markets, and devalu
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
The Ultimate Betrayal of Alex Saab and the Fate of Nicolás Maduro and the Venezuelan People
16 September 2026
The United States got its hands on Alex Saab a second time in order to use him in its case against Nicolás Maduro. The U.S.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
COMMENTARY: The Shrinking American Empire, Glen Ford, 2009
16 September 2026
“The Iraq invasion greatly accelerated the process of U.S. imperialism’s decline.” 
Gary Wilson
Germany’s war drive feeds the far right in Saxony-Anhalt
16 September 2026
The AfD's landslide in Saxony-Anhalt reflects real working-class anger at the war and the arms buildup, but the party redirects that anger towa
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
In the same boat?
09 September 2026
BOOM goes tuna and swordfish stuffed brown burlap bags aboardboats blown to smithereens. Presto! Fishing is now narco-trafficking.
Dhoruba bin-Wahad
Guardian Foray: All That's Not Real Is Camouflage
09 September 2026
An Open Letter from the American "Left" allegedly on behalf of unnamed persons said to be Iranian political prisoners has provided co
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
A People(s)-Centered Human Rights Critique of “An Open Letter to Iran’s Political Prisoners”
26 August 2026
A People(s)-Centered Human Rights framework rejects the liberal abstraction that makes a false symmetry between Iranian authoritarianism and U.
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
U.S. Liberal Media Literacy Guide: The World Bank and the IMF
26 August 2026
The IMF and World Bank are not subjects the corporate media cover in any real sense.
Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective
AISC Red Paper #2: The Multiple Fronts of Iranian Anti-Imperialism
26 August 2026
The Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective (AISC) offers an analysis of the Ramadan War and the multiple fronts of Iranian anti- imperi
Kimberly D. Miller
Beyond the "Delcyification" of Analysis
19 August 2026
Siege, survival, and the dialectics of Venezuelan sovereignty.

More Stories


  • sputnik
    Jamarl Thomas
    The Life and Times of a "Russian Propagandist"
    30 Oct 2024
    RT and Sputnik weren’t closed for getting it wrong. They were closed for getting it right.
  • Tunde Osazua
    Weaponizing Aid: How USAID and the Global Fragility Act Sustain U.S. Imperialism in Libya
    30 Oct 2024
    The Global Fragility Act is a mechanism through which the US gives itself the authority to utilize soft power in Africa through organizations like USAID. The act places a specific focus on Libya,…
  • Carlos Sirah
    Empire's Overseers: The Two-Party Trap of Blackface Imperialism
    30 Oct 2024
    The U.S. political system is perpetuated through the facade of choice. The false belief that we have the power to decide who our political leaders will be and what policy the government will…
  • Austin Cole
    Demanding More in the Struggle for Collective Liberation – A Conversation with Nicholas Richard Thompson, Part II
    30 Oct 2024
    As part of his research on grassroots economic projects toward Black Liberation, Austin Cole spoke with Nicholas Richard-Thompson about his community organizing, expanding definitions of economic…
  • Socialist Movement of Workers of the Dominican Republic
    We Condemn the Executions of Haitian Workers Within the Framework of the Official Racist and Xenophobic Policy
    30 Oct 2024
    Attacks by the fascist government and its supporters against Haitian people and those of Haitian Heritage in the Dominican Republic have become more and more brutal, resulting in the outright…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us