by Mingus Casey
"Do people think that government workers in Iraq are any less human than those in Oklahoma City? Do they think that Iraqis don't have families who will grieve and mourn the loss of their loved ones? Do people believe that the killing of foreigners is somehow different than the killing of Americans?"
It's early in the morning, sun is still low in the sky. The truck moved a lot slower now that it's full up. The fuel tank gauge reads almost full, that'll help, probably won't help much but it will. It's werid as you drive in, like the whole way has been cleared by someone or something, not a cop in sight. Like you are being allowed to do this.
We the demons in your mind give you permission. We will remove all protection from the target prior to the attack, there won't be a cop within five blocks.
Ofcourse, the consequences of your choices will overcome you.
Suddenly the building doesn't look that evil; it just looks as grimy and confused as anything else in this world.
Then you think about Waco, the innocents who died there, the evil that the government does and its easy to do.
Desert and sand and grit. Long plane flights, vaccination shots, driving for hours, finally the front, excitement, war, kill them, the guys head, gone in an instant and his body slumps, blood should squirt but the wound is cauterized by the heat of the shell.
The rest surrender, suddenly weak like children being told off like a parent, you see what they are thinking, that invading Kuwait was wrong and this is punishment. But they've surrendered now, is America really so just and good?
They'll be safe now, but they look scared, really scared.
You watch through the viewfinder as they walk towards you with their hands in the air, waving white, you make eye contact with one, though he doesn't see you it feels like he does, like he feels the human in the metal shell. Then they fall, the description of gore excessive and unnecessary, suffice that they are on the ground and will never move again and they had surrendered first.
The dashboard is clean, atleast the truck looks ordinary, in its proper place. Coins into the parking metre, parking metre won't even be there in a little while.
Walk away, into the crowd.
Three days later, it worked, you heard on the radio.
You've been running since.
k
Flashing lights in the distance, you stop, foolishly. Why are you carrying a gun? They don't even know you did it yet... Do they... Did your guiders sell you out?
Who told you you could do it like that...
Don't even shoot the cop, maybe you should've, but whats the point, he didn't do waco, he didn't create the government, he didn't destroy the constitution, he didn't take away everyones privacy... Wrong target, wrong target, wrong target.
So you refuse when he asks to search, he invokes some law and searches anyways, finds the gun. Fuck, fuck fuck. Did you really think you were going to get away with it?
Couldn't you have chosen a better target?
There's no point martyring yourself.
You didn't know about the kids. It might've stopped you. It never stopped the American government when it came to target selection.
Acceptable levels of collateral damage then, what does that really mean? Is any level of collateral damage acceptable?
You know about the weapons of mass destruction though. The cyanide at waco, the teargas in Nam, the Mk. 77 Firebombs because napalm is illegal in Iraq, the microchips, the selection of targets known to house civillians, the execution of unarmed Prisoners of War.
They trained you how to use them, how to make them, and then once they were done with you they threw you back into civillian life and then you watch, you watch the war on drugs, you watch America's foreign policy, and you wonder what happened to freedom and all the good things in life.
And there's no way to get them back except war.
But they never let you go, no freedom, they direct you to hate the government.
And then they use your actions to justify more wrong-doing, as if two wrongs make a right.
"Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means-to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal-would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely set its face."
Was Timothy McVeigh really crazy?
The bomb detonates, the building collapses and children scream. The emergency services arrive, all too aware that a follow up attack may be planned, the enemy is ruthless and brutal, barbaric. There were children in the bunker, screaming bleeding children are running away, and people are staggering, they look confused, puzzled, what has happened and why?
It's pitch dark at night, the only light is from the antiaircraft fire, but the bombers are invisible except for the split second that they unload their bombs.
Murder most legal...
The pilot gets a medal, mission accomplished, and a few years later he's back in America when he hears about the bomb in Oklahoma.
It's wrong, it's so fucking wrong, but how can the pilot pretend for a second that what he did was any better, that what he did had any decency what so ever? Murder is murder, no matter who does it, and collateral damage is a lie spread by the Pentagon.
Justice? Justice has become like a rotten tree ready to fall. When we allow government contractors and government agencies to commit wrongs that would never be acceptable behaviour for civillians, how can we stand idly by?
To do so, is to sin, but to respond with violence to meet violence is perhaps also a sin. Gandhi would think so, and he knew protestors were being executed by the government.
Tolstoi, who went to war, would also agree, to turn the other cheek.
But that does not mean to close your eyes, that does not mean to allow evils presence.