Thrill Seekers

My fantasy has turned to madness
All my goodness has turned to badness
My need to possess you has consumed my soul
My life is trembling, I have no control
--Obsession, Animotion

A part of me has just been ripped
The pages from my mind are stripped
--Centerfold, J. Geils Band

What's important at this time is to re-clarify
the difference between hero and villain
--J. Edgar (2011)
__________________

There are as many serial killers as terrorists on popular crime shows -- both jobs must have growth potential in today's economy.

Just to re-hash the job descriptors:

Terrorists use symbolic violence to reach an audience beyond the immediate target. They are trying to impose a remote agenda through their actions. Serial killers, or thrill killers, are usually motivated by sexually deviant pathology, and killing serves their fantasy; for serial killers, the killing is the goal.

Pathology is not good in a person, and much less so in a government. The Central Intelligence Agency, at the U.S. government's behest, seems to be indulging in thrill kills, as the actions are within the parameters of deviant behavior.

Last Tuesday armed U.S. drones in Yemen killed some "suspected militants":

"U.S. airstrikes targeting leaders from Yemen's active Al Qaeda branch killed four suspected militants, including a man suspected of involvement in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, officials said Tuesday."

When individuals execute such deviant actions, we employ the full force of the police establishment to bring them to justice. However, when CIA operatives do the same thing, we call this the War on Terror; who is watching the watchers? Assassination is not a war fighting tactic. It is an act as nasty and abominable as any act of terrorism. The delineation between the two and their attempted justification rides on whose ox is being gored.

Let us look at the terms in the news release: If a militant is worthy of liquidation, what of militia members in the U.S.? Aren't members of militias, militants? Does being a militant deem one worthy of elimination as an existential threat to one's government?

Moreover, these were "suspected" militants. When did civilized nations start killing "suspects" as a matter of policy? How does killing a suspect differ fro a thrill kill? Nothing in U.S. case law justifies the killing of a non-adjudicated person. These killings are fulfilling someone's darkest fantasies ... but whose?

"Missiles struck a school and a car late Monday in the southern Abyan province, Yemeni security and military officials said. They identified one of the dead as Abdel-Monem al-Fathanim, who was believed to be involved in the USS Cole attack in October 2000, which killed 17 U.S. sailors and injured 39 others."

So the missiles struck a school to kill someone suspected of involvement in the 2000 USS Cole attack. The rules of war prohibit attacks on schools -- especially when the target is so murky. In addition to the legal and moral concerns, it is not cost-effective to run a worldwide Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) program raining costly sophisticated missiles from the sky on dubious targets.

Disappointingly --though not surprisingly -- not one candidate in the midst of a presidential campaign questions these murders. When did the U.S. President become an omnipotent dictator, and when did the American people lose faith with their justice system? What makes the U.S. different than a Nazi Stuka pilot over the cities of London or Warsaw? We differ in scale, but perhaps not in kind.

Whether terrorism is warfare or criminality, there is no justification for murder.