More in pity than in anger (but there's some anger in me)

[pecunium]

Over at Hullabaloo tristero has a post about the death of a couple of the soldiers who penned the op-ed in the WaPo.

He thinks it wasn't an accident. He doesn't think it was intentional, but he does think it was combat related; maybe even a Uriah moment.

Me, I think accident is a likely reason.

That's not what I'm really writing about though. It's certainly not why this is, at the moment, locked.

No, it's a poster, under the name Jill Bains, in the comments, who has offended me.

She, you see, would be happy if I were killed.

Why?

Because I am a soldier, and the deaths of soldiers might stop the advance of the American, imperial terror occupation. Honest, she said that, right after saying the death of soldiers might be seen, with a certain regret as a positive.

Fuck that. I havee a certain regret that I never told Jennifer Gertzkin how I felt about her when I was in High School. I have a certain regret I never got to eat at The Chronicle in Pasadena, and that I didn't know Mon Grenier was closing, and so eat a valedictory meal there.

I have a certain regret that I have Reiter's Syndrome.

The death of someone is not something one faces with a certain regret. It's possible to have a certain regret that one had to kill someone; but that's circumstantial, contingent on need having forced one's hand.

But for someone one doesn't know, to feel a "certain" regret that their death furthered your political aims, that's incomprehensible to me. It's psychopathic. Immoral.

Hell, I kill people (even if only at a remove, or two). I can live with that. But I don't wish for those deaths. So it's not the death part that offends me. It's the callous disregard for what those deaths she's wishing mean.

Words fail me. Saying, "Fuck her" or "The back of my hand to her," or, desiring that she might,
go down
To the vile dust, from whence (s)he sprung,
Unwept, unhonor'd, and unsung.
as Scot's subject in the last canto of "Lay of the Last Minstrel," will is both too much, and not enough.

I guess, for all the things I've seen people do, and say, to each other, that I read it, and read it again, and can't really believe it.

Comments

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

That is vile.

I'm against this war because I am against war, and the causes of war, and the primary reason I am a pacifist is because I believe that it is wrong to kill, harm, or coerce people.

I mourn the US and UK and Canadian casualties of this insane war no more than the Iraqi or Afghani ones.

But no less, either. Never less.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

In person, we might well sometimes encounter a few people who would be stupid, thoughtless, or psychopathic enough to say things like that, but we don't know it because they're not people with whom we converse on topics of any serious depth. On the internet, they'll pop up much more frequently. There doesn't seem to be much that can be done about it. *sigh*

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

No, not really.

On the flip side, when I do enounter them on the net, I am much less willing to pass on calling them out for it.

TK

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Nor should you. What color is the sky in her reality where it's okay to say that?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Black, or white perhap; with lousy sunsets.

TK

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Sunsets are an imperialist-capitalist attempt to distract the masses from their revolutionary duties with aesthetic temptations. /snark.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Yanno.

Some people's children do not *think.*

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Alex the ex-parrot appears to have applied his brainpower to better ends.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Alex the ex-parrot?

TK

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Alex's obituary: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070911154520.htm

He was a bird of no small parts, it seems.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

And he died young.

TK

[shekkara.livejournal.com]

I don't know that death makes him any less of a parrot.

(It's very sad. As a former Grey "owner" myself, I know how wonderful it is to get to spend time with these remarkable birds.)

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

The ex-parrot bit is from an old Monty Python sketch.

[shekkara.livejournal.com]

Ha! Sorry I didn't get the reference. I've seen some Monty Python, but not a lot.

I once had the great pleasure of being asked by a veterinarian in all seriousness, "African or European?" To this day I'm not completely sure if she understood why I busted out laughing.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

TK, she's may imagine she's bravely espousing Dangerously Well-informed Views, when she is, in fact, merely a Useful Tool for Righteous Rightsters who want to convince the world all the progressives and leftist and liberals in the US Hate America.

IMO, a leftist who was actually equipped with some sensitivity towards other humans (and not just Suffering Masses*) would be more likely to take the tack that Iraq was as unjust a war for the people we sent there** as well as for the Iraqis, so that we had two good reasons for ending it right there.

*I am reminded of Linus's exclamation that he loved mankind--it was people he couldn't stand.

**just based on the basic wrongness of the concept, without bringing in issues like poor strategy and insufficient pre-planning, inadequate equipment, KBR/Halliburton, the CPA, the failures of the military hospitals and the VA, and so on and so forth.

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

I worry that "sacrifice a few troops, it's the only way to end the war and save more people" sounds awful lot like "sacrifice a few people in another country, it's the only way to save more people from some worse abstract consequence". Both think in inhumane terms, and can be used to justify things not only ridiculous but incredibly destructive of human life. Guess that's why I like seeing clearly stated objectives - gives something concrete against which to ask "is this ridiculous? who will die for this ridiculousity?".

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

the deaths of soldiers might stop the advance of the American, imperial terror occupation. Honest, she said that, right after saying the death of soldiers might be seen, with a certain regret as a positive.

Wow, that's truly repulsive. She sounds like the mirror image of the right-wingnuts arguing for the war. Hey, people might die, and they feel "a certain regret," but it's all in furtherance of whatever aim they claim it serves today.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It's not the sentiment that so repulsive (I've read too much history) but that she's no Richelieu, to weigh the real merits.

No, the truly replusive, if not surprising, is the responses she made to my telling her off. I've not read the one which post-dates my posting this, at least not past the first line where she seems to be attempting to snark me by saying I seemed to think her wanting soldiers dead was somehow banal.

TK

[goshawk.livejournal.com]

I can't remember where I read this, but the best description of evil I ever heard was, "sin is treating people like things."

It doesn't matter what side you're on, or what your political aims are--if you treat the people as nothing more than numbers and tools to further them, that's evil.

Unfortunately, these people are on both sides and they seem to be running the show a lot of the time.

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

I'm staggered.

Um. That's about it from me.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I wish I was staggered, but I know she's a outlier, a freak, and not really worth my anger, certainly not my ire, and probably not even the time I gave her.

But it was still more than I could just take in by myself; right then.

I wish I slept more these days.

TK

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

That's just... there aren't words.

I'm feeling strongly tempted to go over there and scream, "Get off my side, you moron, you're making me look as stupid as you are!" at her.

And yes, someone should point out that this is the mirror-image of the warmongers' view of Iraqi casualties as "collateral damage" or "breaking eggs," and therefore makes her no better than they.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Don't let me stop you.

I said all I can, effectively, say to her this morning.

Anything else would an excercise in self-flagellation, since her mind is, pretty much, closed, at least as far as any argument I might be able to make; and the moreso because I make it.

TK

[shekkara.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking and thinking about this since I read your post this morning and haven't much new to add that hasn't already been said. Sometimes I feel like I should be surprised at what people will say and believe. And then someone like Bains comes along and surprises me all anew.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

I second that.

Some people are just f*cked up.

DV

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Words fail me. And have before -- I've seen, not this commenter but this sentiment expressed, and it always leaves me shaking.

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

[boggles]

Does she claim to be a pacifist as well? There's something truly terrifying about people whose affect is so damaged that they can contemplate death with such casual disconnection.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I don't know that she "claimed" pacifism, merely wanting peace.

But she did say she was, at least occaisionally, infallible.

TK