(Re)Think Manchester

    My original post for today was ready, or at least in the final stages of editing; it was a lighthearted look the different ways we die, all taken from the recent book, And Then You're Dead...then came the attack (singular as of today) in Manchester.  The first thoughts --beyond the horror and the sadness for the victims-- are those of puzzlement and cowardice.  If the goal is to shock and to disrupt, then that attack was effective, but at what cost?  A life cut short at 8 or 16 or even at 40 is somewhat acceptable in hospitals and roadsides, that random accident or rare disease that seems to make its way through this planet and affect all species.  But to randomly target and aim to kill innocent children and youth...what could cause someone to justify that line of thought?

   The history of humanity itself is often a puzzle when the wholesale slaughter of towns and villages and peoples can be captured in ancient times such as the Crusades where streets became the scenes of people killing people no matter the age.  Women, children and babies were all killed without a thought.  But jump forward to recent times to Kosovo or Rwanda or even the Holocaust and one has to wonder if this behavior is simply a genetic trait in our species, that our minds can be so easily swayed --despite seeing the lessons of history-- that killing your neighbor or your friend of yesterday can become so emotionless, that it can be justified for the greater "good."  Pulling the camera back to now and moving it 180 degrees, one has to try and wonder what is going on in the minds of today's suicide bombers or those shooting in a crowd with the knowledge that they themselves will be killed in the end?  Have they seen a drone kill their women and children and grandparents with impunity, followed by a hollow apology that those innocents became collateral damage because a leader or organizer was there in the crowd and needed to be killed for the greater "good?"  Or are they feeling patriotic, be it for country or belief or religion, and that such killing of others and themselves will result in getting their mission "accomplished."  Remember that back in the day, the whole of St. Peter's Square was lit up with human torches, people passively watching as crucified bodies were being burned alive for their beliefs (the same thing happened at the Colosseum and other "spectacle" events).  So what is it about something such as Manchester or Paris or Mosul that we can gasp in horror but not seem to be truly horrified?  Emotional, yes; compassionate, yes.  But horrified enough to demand a stop?

    In hearing of such events, I try (and fail) to place myself into this mindset of a suicide attacker.  What would it take to convince me that I would need to walk into a crowded area and blow myself into smithereens, this after also loading my vest with nails and screws and others damaging items that would inflict the most damage to others as shrapnel?  Would it be my wife or my children or animals being held hostage?  It's a common movie scenario, but often one which is solved with money or with the demand of kidnapping or killing just a single person (say to get an access code to a vault or building).  Or at least that is how Hollywood portrays it.  But move back and imagine that now you're a sniper in a soldier's uniform and your country has informed you that there is a someone in the crowd that might be about to do that (blow himself or herself up) and that you need to take them out to prevent the possibility of multiple injuries or deaths (a difficult decision so accurately displayed in the Netflix Norwegian series, Nobel).  Okay, step back even further and now imagine that you're a drone operator in the Nevada desert and you receive the same order...just push the button (this dilemma was also portrayed by Hollywood in Eye In the Sky).  A microsecond later, a demolished building, smoke and confusion would result for the operator but not actual dealing with a body to see if your instincts and training proved correct...good job, you're told, take a day off.  But all of that is war, which is perhaps how these radical groups are viewing the destruction of lives and homes and cities (was it any different in the U.S. bombing of Laos where thousands of bombs remained undiscovered and exploded and unreported during the war in Vietnam).

   So now imagine stepping back even further and now you're simply a somewhat disaffected youth (so say the media) staring at your computer, raised in a foreign country not of your birth (as with many of us), and you get that message of an order repeated daily or hourly...you need to do this, to make your mark, to be famous, to help our cause, to stop the radicals or infidels or enemy from destroying our country/faith/history/morals; you and you alone will have to sacrifice yourself, make the ultimate sacrifice in fact, and give your life for this.  You, as one of our true believers, are among the few we can trust with this; and for this you will be rewarded.  Okay, the majority of us would stare at that sort of message much as we would an online sex site and would recognize this as the desperate phishing that it is and delete it with a bit of irritation (how did they get our email address, we might ask).  But then if you look at the number of people who have given their life savings to online strangers or who have wired money because of a call from the IRS (by the way, the IRS scam is proving quite successful and it should be noted that the IRS will NEVER call you by phone so any such calls are always a scam)...look at those numbers and you see that even if you shrunk that number of victims by a thousandfold, you would still be reaching people.  It only takes one here and there, one willing to try and sneak under the radar and become a carrier of such terror, to walk into a crowded area or some sort of mall or parking area and begin firing away to pull the pin (needless to say, my wife and my vacations to Las Vegas are on the downside, that slight paranoia having already penetrated our consciousness).

   Maybe that is the real goal, to induce fear and to disrupt.  No soldiers or police are necessary if we become too scared to leave our homes; look at how accustomed we've become to airport security or the sense of it at least.  But personally (and sorry to make this such a op-ed piece), this act of killing in Manchester or any place for that matter --this walking into a random crowd of once-happy concert goers or shoppers or movie watchers-- is beyond my comprehension.  To bend down in a school of grade school children and realize that within a few minutes many of them would be dead and dead because of me...how does a mind even think that way?  How unhappy or unsettled would you have to be to selfishly take not only your own life but the lives of others, people or children you don't even know...and if you are going to do that, why wouldn't you target the politicians or military or police who are supposedly causing this change in your imagined world?  Okay, off of my soapbox I step; as with many of you my heart goes out to all of those innocents killed in such a fashion, no matter the justification...war, religious beliefs, anger, mental illness, I can find no rationale that would allow me to kindly shake my head, nod and pat them and tell them that what they did is okay.  Could I kill if I were a parent of a child killed and facing the person who did it...maybe.  I honestly don't know.  I can't stand in their shoes; but I think that I can stand in the shoes of millions of others, people who boldly write the big slogans such as those in Manchester after the disaster...we are strong.  I took that as meaning strong as in stronger than this, strong in our belief that there is good in people, that a misguided coward or cowards can do little to change the will of the many.  Sorry to rant...sometimes one just has to speak out.