Detainees (Gitmo/Guantanamo)
new words by Lee Paxton based on the Woody Guthrie song "Deportees"
10-10-2007

The world is on fire and Iraq is rotting
bodies lay strewn in bombed-out dumps
they're locking us up in torture prisons
'cause they paid all that money to invade us again

My father's own father, by the rugged border
In the war with Iran, he lost his life
but my brothers and sisters have now left the country
and many who remained here have now gone and died

(chorus:)
Goodbye Rashaan, goodbye Baheera
Ma'as salaama Khaleel, Jameel, and Ameera
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane
And all they will call you will be detainees

Some of us are Sunni, some of us Shia
Our town is a war zone and we have to move on
But it's three hundred miles to that Syrian border
They treat us like outlaws, terrorists, and thieves

We died in the hills, we died in the deserts
we died under Bush like we died with Hussein
we died in our towns and on the streets of our cities
Both in the Tigris and Euphrates, we died just the same

(chorus:)
Goodbye Rashaan, goodbye Baheera
Ma'as salaama Khaleel, Jameel, and Ameera
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane
And all they will call you will be detainees

They sent us to Abu Ghraib, they sent us to Gitmo
where they beat us and kick us and dope us with pills
Who are we now, all scattered like dry leaves?
the word from the pundits is that we are just detainees

Is it for the best when we fight for oil and religion?
Is this the best way to spread democracy?
To fall like dry leaves or rot in a prison
And be called by no name except detainees?