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

​​​​​​​ 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.
Luis Britto GarcĂ­a
Venezuela Is Not Iran
19 August 2026
Venezuela is not Iran or Cuba, but those nations teach us that sovereignty is not given but is obtained through resistance.
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist , Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
The White Supremacist Imperative on Violence: A Black Radical Perspective on the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination
15 July 2026
The U.S.-EU-NATO axis remains intact, and its commitment to militarism represents an existential threat to the world.
Hanna Eid
Sovereignty and Strategic Depth
08 July 2026
The U.S.
Jacqueline Luqman
Disaster Capitalism In Haiti Gives A Glimpse Into the Imperialist Shock Doctrine That Could Rattle Venezuela Long After The Earthquakes
01 July 2026
The U.S.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Sportswashing: How Capitalism Kills the Game for Poor and Working Class People While Normalizing How Imperialism Oppresses and Kills Them
17 June 2026
A single working mother could once take her child to a Yankees game for $40, but today that money would not even cover the online ser
Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies
Luis Britto GarcĂ­a: I resist, therefore I am
17 June 2026
"We all know what lies behind the deafening silence that oppresses us.

More Stories


  • Photo: Fabio Rodrigues Pozzebom/ABr – CC BY 3.0 br
    Nick Estes
    Indigenous People of Brazil Fight for Their Future
    22 Sep 2021
    Brazil's indigenous people struggle against an entrenched oligarchy determined to drive them from their lands and a right wing president who is supported by the U.S.  
  • The Money That Never Arrives in Cuba
    Rosa Miriam Elizalde
    The Money That Never Arrives in Cuba
    22 Sep 2021
    The United States has cut off channels for sending remittances to the island, leaving families who rely on the help – especially during the pandemic – without desperately needed resources.
  • Black and Asian American Workers Falling Behind in Getting Back Jobs
    Julie Yixia Cai, Dean Baker
    Black and Asian American Workers Falling Behind in Getting Back Jobs
    22 Sep 2021
    Economic recovery is uneven, with Black workers least likely to be employed in the wake of the covid pandemic.
  • Latin American and Caribbean Leaders Approve Historic Agreement at CELAC Summit
    Peoples Dispatch
    Latin American and Caribbean Leaders Approve Historic Agreement at CELAC Summit
    21 Sep 2021
    The heads of state of the regional block agreed on a 44-point declaration which addressed the strategy against COVID-19 and climate change and took a stand against the blockade on Cuba.
  • Glen Ford Memorial Gathering
    Black Agenda Report
    Glen Ford Memorial Gathering
    15 Sep 2021
    The memorial gathering for Glen Ford was held on Saturday, September 18, 2021 in New York City at the Riverside Church.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us