City of Dark

Last year I was speaking with my aunt about some horrific terrorist attack, and how it had sparked a nearly equally insane demand for revenge.

“Somewhere the Devil is smiling,” she said.

Oh, he sure was. And if Satan was smiling then he was must be laughing his horned head off right now at the slaughter in Paris and the wave of bloodthirsty ignorance that has followed in its wake.

The right wing propaganda machine didn’t even wait for the bodies in Paris to get cold before launching attacks on President Obama, fuming about gun rights, and repeating their cries for war, war, and more war.

Now as an eyewitness to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, I know full well the terror of radical Muslim fundamentalism.

I didn’t watch the carnage on Fox “News”, I didn’t need Rush Limbaugh to explain the situation to me, I was there, so I don’t want any flag-waving fuckhead telling me how things are supposed to work.

I hate those terrorist mother fuckers with a passion that could fuel a Saturn Five rocket. If I could destroy them all with a wave of my hand they’d be one big pile of dust. They live to kill and, believe me, I’m all in favor of their immediate and instant eradication.

However, I also know the destructive power of misguided and deceptive retaliation.

I remember how a certain Texas asshole exploited the September 11 massacre into an excuse for that disastrous war in Iraq, a quagmire that killed or maimed thousands of American soldiers, slaughtered God knows how many more innocent Iraqis, and eventually spawned ISIS, who ripped the heart out of Paris on Friday night.

Nothing happens in a vacuum and when you resort to drastic actions, you’d better be prepared for a drastic response.

Say Cheese

Do you remember that jackass Bush prancing around an aircraft carrier in a flight suit and the stupid “Mission Accomplished” banner flapping behind him? Do you remember the insurgency killing our soldiers every day of the goddamn week?

The mission wasn’t accomplished, and that’s because the mission was a stupid, ill-conceived blundering misstep into one of those most volatile locations on earth that only help to further destabilize the region.

So I get a little uneasy and rather pissed off when I hear these imbeciles demanding that we start dropping bombs and putting boots on the ground. We tried that bullshit before and it didn’t work.

The only way I’d sign off on any military action would be if we draft all the loud mouths who supported the war in Iraq, give them guns, and ship them off to the latest hotspot.

You’re so hot for war, dipshit, you can give it a try.

I don’t know what the answer is; I don’t know what we should do about these psychotic fucks who mercilessly gun down and blow up innocent people.

But I do know that starting unwinnable wars that make defense contractors rich and give cowards an excuse to pretend they’re tough guys from the safety of their homes and radio studios is exactly what we should not being doing.

The people who are pulling these attacks aren’t afraid of death. They’re suicide attackers, for fuck’s sake, so the threats and John Wayne macho man posturing don’t mean a goddamn thing to them.

That’s what makes combatting them so difficult: they’re looking forward to death, not running away from it.

The attacks will continue and we’ll probably continue dropping bombs and sending drones that will kill innocent civilians, thus helping to create even more terrorists.

And the whole time the Devil will be grinning from ear to ear.