What to do about Islamist killers?

In this morning’s New York Times in an Op Ed piece by Richard Cohen entitled Programmed to kill Cohen uses the ‘Mumbai massacre’ killers’ apparent thoughtless and robotic killing of complete strangers in India last year to make a chilling point. 

That point is that rutheless killing and wholesale murder is somehow a lot easier for people than we ever imagined.  It can be seen as almost mundane if people are prepared properly to act as executioners, even to the point of sacrificing themselves for more slaughter.

This was evident from telephone messages between the terrorists’ controllers in Pakistan and the killers in India that had been intercepted by Indian intelligence operatives on the scene during that terrorist attack in Mumbai. The article makes it chillingly clear how easy it is to prepare one human to torture or kill another.

Although not the point of his article, I worry about what we are doing to our combat veterans that we have sent over and over into a brutal combat situation for the sake of corporate greed under the cover story of "combating terrorism".  What are we doing to their psyches? What is the ultimate price we are going to pay for this subterfuge?

What happens to American society when these young people figure out that they have been prepared to kill not all that differently from the Mumbai killers?

Are we setting up our society for violent problems years down the line for people who have been "programmed to kill" based on mythology that we have created surrounding "the Taliban"?  

The phrase "the Taliban" can mean different things.  It is not one group. In Arabic, the literal meaning is ‘someone who is seeking religious knowledge".  We have created this mystique, to some degree at least, that "the Taliban" are our enemies and relative to some groups I am sure that this is true.

But is it true for all of those in the Af-Pakistan area that seek knowledge about their Faith in a madras? Does this apply to everyone who could be labeled "the Taliban"? It had better be.

We have just declared war on them whether it is true or not. Are we ready for what is coming our way years down the pike?  Senseless killing has a way of backfiring on the killers. 

What happens when our former troopers and marines that we have sent into this brutal nightmare wake up years from now and realize what we have done to them?  What happens when it is payback time for corporate greed masquerading as The Great 21st Century Crusade?

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)