RANGER AGAINST WAR: Thrill Seekers <

Monday, February 06, 2012

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.

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6 Comments:

Anonymous Juan Moment said...

Ranger, you make more sense in a paragraph than many US journos and bloggers manage in their entire life.

You ask "when did the U.S. President become an omnipotent dictator".

My guess, with a few exceptions, they always have been. As Douglas Adams wrote, anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

Power hungry psychopaths with no scruples being given command over agencies that without questioning orders kill their given targets. State sanctioned murder is par for the course.


"and when did the American people lose faith with their justice system?"

Have they lost faith in the system? Not noticeable from where I am standing.

To me our western societies are a sea of hypocrites, conformists who apart from paying lip service between feeding their faces are unwilling to look beyond their hip pocket, reelecting war criminals for as long as their respective parties tell them to.

True, to every rule there are exceptions, you guys being a shiny example, but in general our fellow citizens are lemmings too self-absorbed to care.


"What makes the U.S. different than a Nazi Stuka pilot over the cities of London or Warsaw?"

As you say, very little. Both the US pilots and their Nazi predecessors back then consider their given targets as subhumans, not worthy of living cause their Obersturmbandfuehrer/General said so.
.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 8:32:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger rangeragainstwar said...

Juan,
when we (Congress. potus, atty gen'l)believe that federal courts CANNOT address the crime of terrorism here in the fatherland then we have lost faith in the system
military tribunals at gitmo are the proof of this lost faith.
jim

Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 9:29:00 AM GMT-5  
Anonymous Juan Moment said...

Jim, as the mantra goes, its all for national security reasons.

My argument that people haven't lost faith in the federal justice system is based on my observation that they really don't care. To them its "Federal court, Military court, whats the difference! Fox news said they are evil men, so let them rot in some cuban hole."

Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 12:07:00 PM GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

RAW writes:

"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?"

I like.

2 birds with one stone actually. We give these dickless boy wonders a raisin detter with some real-live high explosive persecution and we are rid of some of the more obnoxious element of our society. A healing if you will.

ahem, just my personal dark-of-the-night fantasy, you do understand.

I still have that story you told of going into a story, opening your yap about something and being exposed to this guy's automatic membrum virile.

bb

Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 1:06:00 PM GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

into a store

and have in my mind

dammit ranger, getting me all excited and hasty like that.

:)

bb

Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 1:09:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger rangeragainstwar said...

BB,
the guns in waist bands just get you excited. you must be an excitable boy.
Juan,
the POTUS can argue that he's killing people b/c he has that authority as c in c, but how does that authority cross over to the non military cia thrill kills.?
jim

Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 1:49:00 PM GMT-5  

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