Wanna Bet?

Several weeks ago, some friends and I were told a most sick and gruesome story about what goes on in Iraq. We were exiting a restaurant, and my friends sat down to have a smoke. A man walked up to them and asked for a cigarette and a light. "Don't just bring the habit," my friend scolded the man. At some point I mentioned a detail I remembered in All Quiet on the Western Front, about how the German snipers killed the black American soldiers by looking for their cigarette cherries. The man who bummed the cig enthusiastically regaled us with a daring tale of how he and his friends made a bet to see who could kill a man sitting on his patio, innocently smoking a cigarette in the night. They each took turns taking shots at his cherry, until one guy managed to get the mark and won the bet. At this point, my friends and I turned green with disgust and red with anger, and asked him why they would do such a thing, to which he responded: "Oh, its Iraq, man, this kind of shit goes on all the time, man!" Like he was proud of it, shrugging off the brutal murder with a flippant remark. He continued his story (with renewed gusto), the point of which was actually that they could not find the corpse in the morning; it had been dragged away, leaving a trail of blood. He took more interest and concern in the mess the corpse made and the fact that it disappeared than the awful fact that he was a willing participant in a bet to kill a person for no reason. Oh wait, there were a few bucks at stake.

One can still be a Bushbot and have some compassion, some empathy for the person in this situation. More than that, let's think about the consequences of this. The man was someone's son, someone's husbad, someone's father, someone's sibling, a community member who may be sorely missed by his family, friends, and neighbors. All the people that knew this person will know that he died for no reason. Will this incident endear them to the Americans and occupying forces? I don't think so.

This behavior is evil, it is sick, and it needs to stop, because it leads to more violence, more hatred, more fear. This does not fight "terror", this encourages "terror" - and was a merciless and real act of terror. If you support this war and this administration, you are supporting this terrorism. Seek help immediately.