“It is a very kingly, honourable, and frequent Practice, when one Prince desires the Assistance of another to secure him against an Invasion, that the Assistant, when he hath driven out the Invader, should seize on the Dominions himself, and kill, imprison or banish the Prince he came to relieve. Alliance by Blood or Marriage, is a frequent Cause of War between Princes; and the nearer the Kindred is, the greater is their Disposition to quarrel: Poor Nations are hungry, and rich Nations are proud; and Pride and Hunger will ever be at variance. For those Reasons, the Trade of a Soldier is held the most honourable of all others: Because a Soldier is a Yahoo hired to kill in cold Blood as many of his own Species, who have never offended him, as possibly he can.” – Jonathan Swift


Surprise. For three years, the media salivates about killing people – the recent flurry of stories glorying in the fact that the bomb that eviscerated Zarqawi did leave him a number of hours of pain to give us bystanders that extra soupcon of pleasure, provides us with a recent example. And then we have a ‘volunteer army’ – which means, really, one half composed of shanghai-ed National Guard, who are properly supposed to serve only domestically, sent overseas in order to avoid disturbing the jammy comfort level of the people back home who are reveling in their high gas prices, their stagnant wages, and voting for their tax cuts. These kidnapped troops are being cycled and recycled through the killing fields, with the usual high rate of injury, and the mental terror of themselves having to kill Iraqis, since to kill always puts a dark spot on the brain; killing comes back, in dreams, in sudden starts, riding down the street in a car, arguing with the wife or the husband or the son or daughter. And of course the price is paid ten times over by the Iraqis themselves. So the mix has been made, we’ve all danced to the music, and just like the old Vietnam days, crime is starting to rise. Wow, is that a surprise?

No, it isn’t even a consideration. WAPO, giving us the figures, isn’t deigning to match the rise in crime in the Midwest with the figures showing the majority of recruits are coming from the Midwest. Nor are they going to attribute the rise in crime to anything like the bloodthirsty culture they indulge in, editorially, day in and day out. So it is just a big, big coincidence that the end of the Cold War marks the downturn in crime – from 1991 – and the beginning of the mock war on jihadism marks an upturn in crime.

“The rise in violent offenses nationally represents the largest overall crime increase since 1991. Violent crime peaked in 1992, before beginning to plummet to its lowest levels in three decades.”

One hears the old suburbanite complaint in the background here. Can this be? Can’t American turn our jails into more permanent hellholes? Can’t Americans encourage more prison rape, longer sentences for ever more absurd offences, and – most of all –the march of black men in particular through those slaughterhouses, allowing the good citizen to vicariously and deftly strip these men of their civil rights, inheritors of a history of being boggled, chained, and lynched from American times immemorial of glorious freedom lovin’ history? Which history spills out into Iraq, where again, dark skinned men are the target of opportunity. But there is always a price to pay for killing as many of your species as possible. There are echoes and reverberations. There is the moral plague that is carried home.

“Criminal justice experts said there were a number of possible explanations for the increase, including an influx of gangs into medium-size cities and a predicted surge in the number of inmates released from U.S. prisons. The jump could also represent a lingering effect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, some experts said, because governments at all levels have diverted resources away from traditional crime fighting in favor of anti-terrorism and homeland security programs.

"One possibility for the rise overall that we will want to watch is whether the shifting of law enforcement priorities to various kinds of homeland security duties accounts for any of this," said David A. Harris, a University of Toledo law professor who studies homeland security and criminal justice issues.”

We’ve searched our damn archives for the post – alas, we haven’t found it – in which LI cawed prophetically about the rise in crime that would inevitably follow war in Iraq. Nobody is going to connect those dots, though.

In fact, the media, feeling awful bad that it even reported on the massacre at Haditha – and in some articles hinted that the techniques used there were perfected in Falluja, that war crime of blessed memory - has decided to go along with the Bush publicity offensive of the moment. Thus, we are being served the rewarmed, optimistic pablum of 2003 all over again. LI wonders when the choking point is finally, finally going to come.

Instead of Harris, LI has consulted another expert on homeland security and justice issues – the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah wrote:

And say, Hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah, that
sittest upon the throne of David, thou, and thy servants, and
thy people that enter in by these gates:

Thus saith the LORD; Execute ye judgment and righteousness,
and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: and
do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless,
nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place.

For if ye do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting upon the throne of
David, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants,
and his people.

But if ye will not hear these words, I swear by myself, saith
the LORD, that this house shall become a desolation.