MY PLEASANT CHAT WITH A SERIAL KILLER.

Category: True

I frequently talk to individuals from all walks of life.
I do this based on the belief, that the exchange however brief and simple will benefit me at worst and enrich both individuals at best.

Recently I had a conversation that had made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. A conversation that confirmed in solid, indisputable facts that the war is wrong and its consequences will haunt the West for many, many years to come.

I had a conversation with a mass murderer.
One who by his own admission killed more than 200 people.
He did not try to hide it.
He was proud of it.

To put things into perspective. Ted Bundy confessed to 30 murders, 'Son of Sam', killed around 10. "David" has killed 200 people and the government not only did not prosecute him but awarded him 4 decorations.
Yes this gentleman is a soldier.
"David" was in Afganistan in the US Army Special forces B-Group, Delta Wing.

His platoon killed over 3000 people by his own words.
This raises a couple of interesting points.

1. The US government may not be officially keeping count, but rest assured the individual units are keeping scalp count.
I am concerned not out of some 'misguided' humanitarian concern.
I am concerned that we are killing these people beause with each death we create a martyr, each dead muslim (more on that later) spawns an army of avengers. Uncles, brothers, friends. Everyone who knew the man at best starts to hate his killers, at worst takes up the arms against them. Far short of making the world a safer place, like the legendary hydra, each time a head is cut off, seven more sprout in its place. Many believe that this is exacatly the purpose of this long, never ending war. Not to 'win' it, because its unwinnable. But to put our entire civilisation on a war footing where human rights are continually abridged and abused and public wealth is squandered on un-necessary military expenditure making the few wealthy even wealthier and the poor masses even poorer.

2. The 200 dead were all guilty. Sentenced and executed by the Cowboy frontier justice. The Guantanomo bay concentration camp is a luxurious and just representation of human rights compared to what is happening on the front.
One of the 200, even had a grenade in his pocket. Thus making him guilty of the heinous crimes of trying to destroy Christianity.
Ignoring the fact that the grenade was in his pocket not in his hand.
Ignoring the fact that in a country whith no central government for over 20 years a grenade and a rifle are as common item of apparel for men as an umbrella and a cigaret lighter are here. This man, one of the 200, the one most guilty of crimes against the west. The one who was fronted as an example of the evil Muslims. One out of 200. The crime justifying his death was a grenade in his pocket.

< blink >

I will not even dwell on the necessity of searching the pockets of the dead. Half out of some deep desire to prove that the enemy compound you just annihilated was in fact the seething nest of terrorist vipers and not civilians, half out of operational necessity for intelligence. Oh the irony of that word.

The best you can come up with after the massacre to justify your kill count is 'You find a grenade in his pocket'. Not 'you find a machine gun nest', not 'you find communications equipment', not 'you find explosive belts' but 'you find a grenade in his pocket'. Thus he was not an innocent civilian.

3. "David's" commander was in his own words, 'A scary guy who was on the horn to the White house all the time'. For a moment, ponder on what makes a man who proudly kills 200 think of another as 'A scary guy'. Secondly, given that statement, there is little doubt that Bush, Blair and Howard are ignorant of the war crimes committed in our name every day this madness continues. We are all complicit by our silence. The media avoids exposing us to the reality of the torn apart bodies of the old and young alike not because of some sense of 'propriety' but knowing full well that if we were to understand the daily attrocities commited in our name we would rally and stop this un-necessary waste of life and resources. But really, that is not as important on what is happening on 'Big Brother' this week.

In our conversation I had asked "David" whether he had heard of the Nuremberg trials. Yes he has heard of it. But, he quickly added, the defence of 'Following orders' was false by most of the accused. Indeed, they have been mainly the instigators of those orders. That at least was a minor consolation. That somewhere deep in his soul, there is some regret and fear that his actions were wrong.
That he does not necesserily believe that "If it had not been for his actions, screaming mad Muslims would be slaughtering me in my living room." (His words).

By all definitions War Crimes are being commited every day in our name.
It is little comfort that United States the avatar of Freedom is in the company of China a country US frequently lambasts for violating basic human rights and Israel in 'unsigning' the International Criminal Court designed to prosecute War Criminals.

Maybe this is the real reason why there is secrecy surrounding our valiant fighting men defending us from the screaming fanatical hordes and carrying the burning cross of jesus christ our saviour into the heart of the heathen heartland.
To paraphrise, "Gentelmen we have met the enemy and it is us. We are as mad and as fanatical as the other side.".

Again, I would like to see the bright side. The fact that his decorations were sent to him by mail and were not to be officialy acknowledged shows embarassment by the government. A shame that by the standards that we like to measure ourselves as civilised and elightened we have failed.

Ultimately this is why war is evil.
Not only because it brings misery, destruction, injustice, scars and poverty to all but the very few.

War is evil because it turns the enligtened society into bloodthirsty mad beasts abandoning reason for animal instinct.

Terror war indeed.