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
_____________________

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.

The Audactity of Hope, Muslim-style

--Moammer Qaddafi being sodomized upon capture
by Muslim man (Global Post)

No Laughing Matter

War is God's way of
teaching Americans geography
--Ambrose Bierce

Don't hang back with the brutes!
--A Streetcar Named Desire,
Tennessee Williams

Why did you have to act so mean?
Don't you know you're a human being?
--Bad Boys, Bob Marley
_________________

Ranger feels confident announcing, ahead of his class, that the U.S. has officially lost the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©).

We don't know exactly when the fateful moment occurred, but watching David Letterman's monolog last night confirmed it. The host and his audience were larfing it up over the murder of Libyan leader Moammer Qadhafi. Not one audience member protested, "That is not funny". We are sure the other humorists pandering to the lowest common denominator -- like Colbert et. al. -- also joined in the fun.

We publish photos of dead and broken bodies for the entertainment value, and then call them brutal and savage. Is it possible that people like Lettermen and audience must make all of this death into a joke because they find it so incomprehensible?

Secretary of State Clinton is seen laughing after receiving the news with a CBS correspondent HERE. "We came, we saw, he died" she declared, like a great Roman emperor (or more at Bill Murray.) Can you picture Henry Kissinger or Warren Christopher laughing at anyone's -- let alone, a head of state's -- murder? A somber, regal pose is expected by government leaders in the public eye. What hath Survivor and Co. wrought in this nation?

The health of a nation can be gauged by many things, but the level of it's public discourse and sentiment is a strong indicator of its humanity. We howled when evil incarnate Saddam Hussein was dragged from his "hidey hole", only to by lynched by a rowdy mob. We are fascinated by images of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek in a cage.

Now, we celebrate along with Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama the macabre spectacle of Qadhafi's brutal murder and the "freedom" gained by the murderous thugs who committed this atrocity, delivered to them by the beneficent largesse of the U.S. Nato bombing campaign. We print dehumanizing and humiliating photos as if to cement the former leaders' image as demons somehow worthy of this brutality. Brutality against even a brute is still brutality.

The violence done to our collective humanity is inexpressible. If Manuel Noriega was a Prisoner of War, then Saddam and Qadhafi should have been afforded the protection of a POW. According to the Geneva Conventions, abuse of prisoners under any circumstance is not permissible; yet Qadhafi was murdered and tortured in cold blood. Global Post released shocking video of a wounded Qadhafi being sodomized by the gleeful mob (Qadhafi Sodomized).

Ranger recalls the night Saddam was executed: he (Ranger) was in a redneck shit-kicking bar and they erupted in cheers at the murder, exactly the same glee in which Letterman was wallowing last night. Laughing at the dead is not Christian; it is not even human. No Enlightenment value is seen in such emotion.

Letterman went on to joke about the lack of trial in Qadhafi's case. Why do we laugh at the trashing of due process of law? Has that concept been so thoroughly trounced that we figure only rubes cleave to it? Far less funny is the reality that no progress has occurred; in fact, this is a regressive step. At the very minimum, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Why is the image of Qadhafi lying bullet-ridden in a meat locker for general photo ops, funny?

The pressing question is: Are we Christian, or a nation of morals? Do we have human empathy? What does it mean to be "human"? Are Enlightenment ideals quaint notions past their due date? Is killing a joke or a sport? If we do believe in a Creator, is he laughing, too?

Moammer Qadafhi is dead and we find fit to rejoice, but have the deaths of all the "bad guys" thus far done us any good? Two weeks ago a tidy U.S. drone killed 16-year-old U.S. citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki in Yemen, damage collateral to a supposed kill of a "top al-Qaeda official". (Cute terminology, no? -- al-Qaeda now has officials, just the the NRA, we guess.) It is difficult to say we are winning something when we are killing children and calling it a necessity. When did we last kill a 16-year-old without a trial; for that matter, a 46-year-old?

The War on Terror is having a reverse, unintended effect upon the U.S. The world is not rising to our level, but rather, we are descending to theirs. We now laugh at death as entertainment. The Romans cheered when the Christians were martyred.

Yes, it is a very unfunny coda -- we have lost the war on terror. John McCain can have the final word when he spoke on the death of Osama bin Laden earlier this year. Though he got it wrong when he stated the much-vaunted Arab Spring was a "complete repudiation of [OBL's] violent ideology", he was correct in the following:

As we debate how the United States can best influence the course of the Arab Spring, can’t we all agree that the most obvious thing we can do is stand as an example of a nation that holds an individual’s human rights as superior to the will of the majority or the wishes of government? Individuals might forfeit their life as punishment for breaking laws, but even then, as recognized in our Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, they are still entitled to respect for their basic human dignity, even if they have denied that respect to others.

When we find mirth in brutality we are on par with the brutes.

--By Jim & Lisa

Libyarators

Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Deutschland is happy and gay!
We're marching to a faster pace
Look out, here comes the master race!
--Springtime for Hitler, The Producers

Do you no good to go poking around
under rocks, Justin.
Some very nasty things live under rocks,
especially in foreign gardens
--The Constant Gardner (2005)
__________________

Subtitle: New Thugs on the Block

Everybody is up in arms about the Obambarator unilaterally declaring war in the Libya miasmasphere. The furor revolves around the War Powers Act and the constitutional strictures regarding presidential employment of the Armed Forces of the United States.

The question is not, "Is the military action in Libya constitutional?" but rather, "Is it legal?"Further, is there anything of value to accrue to the U.S. as a result of this action? If Moammer Qaddafi is deposed, a new Moammer, or a coalition of Moammer's, will replace him.

We are violating a bedrock military principle in Libya, to wit: "Don't mistake movement for progress." There is no replacement for Mr. Qaddafi even if we do topple him. And how many more years will the U.S. spend grooming the next nutjob?

Why do we employ our assets in the Middle East every time some new thug throws a hand grenade? "Arab Spring" sounds fresh -- like a bar of green deodorant soap -- but spring doesn't mean the same thing for everybody. In some gardens, it's sunflowers; in others, turnips. An old saying goes: Don't plant radishes and expect turnips (Eastern European, as you can imagine.) A good gardener knows he must check soil conditions, weather, seeds and pests before planting and expecting a good yield. The U.S. is dropping Liberty Bombs expecting a lush yield, but that is a fool's errand.

Is it U.S. policy to do something simply because we can? If so, then we should elect teenagers as our leaders (it seems often, we do.) Lisa once asked a friend's 6-year-old who was behaving badly, "Why are you so bad?" To which the bright lad offered, "Because I can be!" He knew his unbridled power, and wielded it indiscriminately. The U.S. is behaving much the same in its war policy.

President Lincoln asked General McClellan in the Civil War, General, if you are not using the Army, can I borrow it? Not only is Obama borrowing the Army to continue Mr. Bush's ill-advised adventures, but he is now extending the U.S.'s presence into new theaters; moreover, there is no Army from which to borrow in Libya, unlike the cover of the marginal Armies available in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We own scraps of paper indicating our exit dates from the first two engagements, but who can believe the U.S. will not leave troops in either country if they request we extend our presence to aid in their cause?

That is what our Army now does: Protect everyone and everything, except America.