Passion Play

When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing,
but that rather a tumult was made, he took water,
and washed his hands before the multitude saying,
I am innocent of the blood of this just person:
see ye to it
--Matthew 27:24
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The grotesque murder of Libyan leader Muammer Gaddafi 20 October became instantaneous fuel for comics and cartoonists, and just as quickly disappeared from the radar.

Instantaneous outrage or celebration has become the norm in our unreflective, sped-up world. Once the ghoulishness of the thing sank in, the pundits explained it away as karma or divine retribution, except we do not live in the Bhagavad Gita or the Old Testament. The behavior was simply representative of what radical Islamists do in such a situation.

It is the same mindset that allows the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center, and the one that allows the U.S. punitive retributions as payback. Muammer Gaddafi may have deserved a death penalty, but not in the manner in which he got it, compliments U.S./NATO support.

Contrast the filmed Libyan event to the still photo of General Loan's field adjudication during Tet 1968. This event, witnessed by the world, helped end the Vietnam war for national liberation. Granted it is a still, but the shooting is a solemn event compared to the rabidity surrounding any frame in the footage of the Qaddafi murder.

It is easy to compare the brutal Libyan event to the Biblical story of the torture and death of Jesus, to include Gaddafi's entreaty of his murderers after being dragged from the pipe where he was in hiding: "Why are you doing this, my children?" It is Jesus's imploring of God, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" It is the harsh end for every martyr.

The anal assault on Gaddafi is the like the figurative raping of the American body politic by Presidents Bush and Obama, except that one was delivered from the citizens to the leader. In America today we are like obedient boys school students -- Yessir, may we have another?

What sins did Gaddafi perpetrate that the U.S. taxpayers have not paid for every day of the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©)? The U.S. has tortured, murdered, beaten and mishandled prisoners in its custody. It has operated secret prisons, and kidnapped and rendered suspects for torture in foreign hellholes. It has sexually abused and humiliated prisoners for no other reason than vengeance. We stick people's heads in sandbags and sensory deprive them, later subjecting them to sensory overload. We run black ops assassination teams and deal death mutely from the sky.

We dispense people for being Taliban in areas the U.S. lacks jurisdiction and where being Taliban is a rather common reality. We allow our President as the Commander in Chief to use our military and CIA as hit teams without proven benefit to ourselves or anyone else. We continue to hold prisoners in GITMO without hope of a fair trial.

What did Gaddafi do that U.S. policy has not trumped in spades?

U.S. actions in the PWOT are as unjustifiable as those of our adversaries, perpetuating the cycle of violence and death. The death of Gaddafi was a pre-Halloween spectre in the American House of Horrors signifying little more than yet another brutality, but we fail to grasp that fact.

When we accept the concept that brutality is justified, we have lost our value system. We are back to the Old Testament, and serving false gods.

The PWOT has shown that veneer of humanism is mighty thin here in the Homeland™ that we are purported to be protecting at such a cost.