So, I have a list--a short list--of people that I truly despise. One time, I even contemplated killing one of them. It wouldn't have been a crime of passion. It wouldn't have been self-defense. It wouldn't have been an act of madness. It wouldn't have been an act of war. It just would have been an act of retribution--payback for years of fear, oppression and pain. But as much as I wanted to do it, and as much as I believed it was possible that I could, I couldn't.
Most of us will never know what it's like to take the life of another human. Regardless of belief systems, it seems to be an act that most of us innately know to be heinous and unforgiveable. Even though many enlist in the different branches of the armed forces, most people doing so hope they will never be forced to take another life.
Those of us who don't find ourselves in situations that force our hands, don't know what enters the mind of individuals who make the fateful decision to kill someone else. Until reading the now wildly popular "Hunger Games" series, I couldn't imagine a circumstance that would convicne children to actvely participate in the sport of killing each other. Most of the characters never would have considered committing such a heinous act, until reaching that arena and knowing that it was kill or be killed. Until under direct threat, Katniss seemed to be avoiding the inevitable--letting others do the killing.
"The Hunger Games" aren't real life. But luckily, in real life we don't frequently find ourselves in the position of having to defend ourselves or others. I would bet most of us don't know what we would do in these kinds of circumstances. We hope we'd be able to protect ourselves or those we love, but we hope we never have to find out.
In recent days, the idea of being "driven to kill" has taken the spotlight.
An Army Staff Seargent allegedly went door to door killing innocent Afghan men, women and children. Many people say that if he committed this horrible crime, it's only because he was "driven to it" after multiple deployments, traumatic brain injury and the influence of alcohol. We should feel sorry for him.
Hundreds of thousands of men and women have been deployed to active duty multiple times and suffered brain and other significant injuries. But only one was allegedly "driven to kill" nine children. What I have found deplorable is the number of people coming to his defense, justifying his actions because of how much he has suffered from being deployed so many times. It's difficult, if he indeed did commit this terrible act, to understand how a father of two young children could take the lives of other children. I'm having a great deal of difficulty finding it in my heart to understand or empathize with this kind of act. I find myself not caring about how many times he was deployed, or what he suffered. I'm sure the relatives of the victims don't find any peace in knowing their loved ones were cut down in their sleep because a man had willingly enlisted in the armed forces and found himself serving multiple tours. I find myself looking for accountability.
If there can be a positive for me in reflecting on this act, it's that I know there are countless other men and women serving us honorably--over and over--and doing everything to hold themselves together and not get sucked into this kind of abyss. Knowing this makes my support for our troops even stronger, because the majority are showing grace under extreme pressure and duress. We owe them a debt we will never be able to repay.
Killing in a war zone is what a war zone is all about. We expect people to kill each other on a war front, but we don't expect it on our city streets.
People everywhere are protesting, and calling for the arrest of a man who took the life of a seventeen-year-old African American boy in Florida. The man claims that his actions were self defense. He claims that the boy came after him and beat him up. He was forced to defend himself. I don't know what really happened. There's a good chance none of us will ever learn the whole truth behind the incident, because a bizarre law in Florida makes the act of deadly force legal if you claim such force was used in self-defense.
The thing that makes me wonder most about this incident is the recorded conversation between the shooter and a 911 dispatcher who was telling him not to pursue the boy--to let law enforcement address the situation. He ignored the dispatcher's directive. Why? I don't even care about the possibility that he used an obscene racial slur in the call. I just find it hard to understand why he continued to pursue the kid. I also consider how the average man might react to seeing someone seem to stalk them while on a cell phone, and I wonder, would that have driven Trayvon to confront him--in turn giving Zimmerman an even greater sense of just cause for taking his life? Could a shoving match over bitter words and misinterpreted actions led to this kid's death?
I'm not naive. I know that as much as I would prefer to live in a world where we could all resolve issues non-violently, I understand that won't always happen. But short of some aberrant twist of chromosomes, I will never understand what makes one human more likely to "snap," and with seemingly little to no cause take the life of another human.
Killing does not lead to anything good. At the time of the 9/11 attacks, even my emotions were high, and in the flurry, I believed a violent response was warranted. But in the years since, it has become less clear to me what the benefit of such a response truly has been. Trillions of dollars have been spent. Thousands of lives have been laid to waste. The ideology of the region we have occupied for the last ten years has barely inched from what it was at the time of the attacks. The destruction of sixteen innocent lives certainly hasn't further endeared us to the Afghan people, or anyone else in the region.
On our home front, the New Black Panthers are calling for loud protests and an "eye for an eye" in regards to the slaying of Trayvon Martin. They are practically inciting violence with their rhetoric.
I'm at a loss to understand how spilling the blood of others can help right any wrong. I'm at a loss to understand how we can look at anyone and say "he was driven to it."
Mahatma Ghandi said it better than anyone else ever will: "An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind."
Mothers of the Disappeared--U2
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