The Ghosts of the Civilian Dead
Something's as afoot as something is amiss. While killing is never easy might it just be easier to kill those who aren't trying to also kill you?
“I don’t know WHAT the fuck is going on.”
A Moldovan resident of the Ukraine, if he wasn’t scratching his head literally, was doing so figuratively. By his lights this was just more Russian kayfabe. With the war in Ukraine not going according to whatever plan Putin had in mind, and fewer Russians signing up to fight it, he believed it was a recruitment scam.
Right up until ISIS-K (ISIL) took credit/got blamed for it.
“What the fuck.” He shook his head. What the fuck, indeed. Because once you parse the differences between ISIS-K and ISIL and ISIS, who is doing what to whom in Syria where Putin has backed the ISIS play, and whether or not this was scheduled to be a replay of what happened in Chechnya, you realize you can’t keep the players straight without a scorecard.
But if you can stroll by all of that there’s something else, concerning and not noted nearly enough for my liking: since when did civilians become such ready targets?
An almost stupid question to ask if you have a military memory longer than half a century and it involves everything from (not-so) secret bombings of Laos, Dresden carpet bombing, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the list is literally endless. And yet the present day flavor is much more deeply personal, if you can rank murder on that kind of scale, and seems to say or suggest so much more.
In both of these cases, micro suggesting the macro, it seems quite clear: attacking those who don’t expect to be attacked is a “winning” formula.
Remembering as a male child in the 1970s, having a knee jerk reaction to the idea of Nazism, and being somewhat respectful of what I felt was the power of unbridled might. During a time when I might have had the least amount of personal power this would have been somewhat attractive. The strict, unyielding media portraiture of Nazi era Germans would have contributed to this as well.
That and endless documentaries, books by Shirer, historical retrospectives. Right up until I started dating a Polish woman, really.
“This is the church my grandparents got married in.” She waved at a fairly impressive church during a visit to Poland. “Yeah. They got married, walked out of the church with their friends and families and looked up at the sky.”
To G-d for a benediction for their holiest of matrimonies?
“No,” she said. “Planes were flying over with swastikas on them.” It was September 1, 1939 and despite threats and rumors of war, pre-Internet, most Poles found themselves flummoxed. But Nazis, as Nazis do, cleared things up quickly. Two of her relatives were killed in the first month. One, a man, torn apart by dogs while soldiers in attendance laughed. The other, what would have been her aunt, if she had lived past five years old, was injected with some mystery chemical that took her life.
In both of these cases, micro suggesting the macro, it seems quite clear: attacking those who don’t expect to be attacked is a “winning” formula. That has nothing to do with strength. A walk down Presidential Assassins lane should clear that up as well. Sometimes men without means have managed to get in the Win column against the highest and mightiest just by doing the unexpected.
Eye the exits, buy bulletproof vests, keep your backs to the wall. Our new normal is here, and it’s a killer.
But from the October 7th attacks in Israel (as well as the punishing counter attacks on Gazan civilian populations) to the ISIL attack on concertgoers in Moscow, from the 2002 Nord-Ost siege (again a theater) to the Bataclan concert attack on the Second Amendment supporters in the Eagles of Death Metal, and their fans, the way seems clear. Pawns are now people who least expect it and if this doesn’t seem like your grandfather’s war it is. Every bit of it.
The death toll at the Moscow shooting now though, as of this writing, stands at 137, lots of them children. Of course, a couple of days after, Russia does the most sensible thing by way of retaliation: they bomb Ukraine (insert confused face emoji of your choosing). A move America can well appreciate after our Iraq imbroglio where we attacked a country for the 9/11 attacks that had much less to do with them than the Saudis.
Signals need to be sent and this is the most modern of ways to send them. “If we find you,” Putin might say, “what we’re doing to Ukraine we will do to you.” Two birds, one stone.
However, like punishing a dog, days after its original infraction, the causal connection might not be made. Until you realize it is: ISIL-K, ISIS, the Taliban, Hutus, Serbs, Irish Protestants, Shia, Sunni, aggrieved (and armed populations) of the “disenfranchised” now number so many that The Onion idea of creating a homeland for them called Ethniklashistan, at once funny, seems to have some merit.
Will they keep killing people who are only marginally connected to whatever disturbance they’re trying to redress? Sure, they will. Regardless of multiple failures to achieve any real (and lasting) political goals? Damn right they will.
Is there a real reason why?
Definitely. To paraphrase Lt. Harry Callahan, aka Dirty Harry: “because they like it.”
The rest of us? Not so much. So be careful out there. Eye the exits, buy bulletproof vests, keep your backs to the wall. Our new normal is here, and it’s a killer.
For those of you who read last week’s Sub and were curious how the movie ended: Steve died this past Friday, 9:30 am by some reports, 10:04 by others. I’m going to miss him.
OK…So you have ordered the memoir A Walk Across Dirty Water and Straight Into Murderer's Row, from Amazon…Or the Bookshop.Org dealie: Here?
Might you consider giving it a review in either of those places?
I’ve been told it matters, somehow. So please: review away! Unless you think it sucks. Then, maybe, just keep that part to yourself. At last count there were 55 reviews…so yeah…GET AT IT!!! Every one helps. Or so they tell me.
AND if you want to come to the book deal in Venice Beach, California on EASTER SUNDAY, please do so. I’ll sign any book of mine you bring, will answer ANY question no matter how unreasonable, and may get a tattoo of your name if you pay the right price.
BE THERE.
I've already heard in the course of the day more than enough hand wringing about "How could they do that to those innocent people?" regarding the Moscow theater attack. I guess those people forget about it when it's in service of the goals of our (or whoever's) government, because that's killed far more people than ISIS-K could even begin to on their best day. I'm surely not saying they were justified in using that tactic, just that the tactic is as old as the damn hills. Still disgusting.
Also: Steve Shaughnessy. I can't say we were particularly close, but we had a great conversation every time we saw each other. He will be missed, for certain.