The Parliament of Ghosts

It’s been a little while since I last updated with anything that wasn’t one of my cool videos.  In fact, Spacklecube as a whole has been kind of dead, with only David’s truly insane dreamworld and Alex’s incredibly banal dreamworld breaking up the boredom.  For my part, I’ve been busy, and unlike some people, I don’t have a cushy office job where I can just sit around all day and not update Spacklecube.  No, I do the work of a real man: trying to justify my existence to myself.  Well I have managed to stop doing that for almost TWO WHOLE HOURS and now I can present you with some of that brand new Spacklecube content you have all come to know and love with:

10 Amendments in the Renewed USA PATRIOT Act You Might Not Have Known About

could you honestly say you would give a shit if these things got waterboarded

1. The Sessions-Baucus Amendment legally redefines terrorists from “enemy combatants” to “a fairly persistent species of spider,” which means they no longer have human rights. Bush Lawyer John Yoo long pushed for this provision, now embraced by the Obama administration. His legal basis for the argument was that, “nobody cares about what happens to spiders, because they are fucking terrifying.”

2. After a difficult weeks-long procedural battle the Paul-Sanders Amendment was adopted. This amendment specifies that provisions of the PATRIOT Act can only be used on suspected terrorists.

3. After a 3-minute meeting in the White House between Lindsay Graham, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid, a rider was added to the Paul-Sanders Amendment defining a “terrorist” as “an individual who has done something that may or may not be bad anywhere, ever,” and “suspected” as “literally anyone.” After meeting with Chuck Schumer, the subclause, “who makes less than $1,000,000 in pre-tax revenue per year” was added to the provision. The amendment was passed while Senators Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders were waiting at the park behind the Capitol Building where they had been told that pretty girl they have a crush on wanted to talk to them.

seriously, fuck this guy

4. The Feinstein-McConnell amendment adds provisions on leaking classified information. The Subversive Nationals Implicated in Trafficking Classified or Harmful Executive Secrets Get Secret Trials, Interment, Two in the Chest, and Hospital Emergency Services Amendment prescribes harsh penalties for anyone accused of leaking classified information. When asked about the SNITCHES Get STITCHES Amendment, Sen. Feinstein said, “Bitches best watch who they talk to, ‘fore they find themselves in solitary confinement six feet deep.”

5. The Lieberman Amendment requires that somebody, anybody, pay attention to this sad little sack of pig excrement.

6. The Default Classification Amendment now instantly classifies all use of the English language by government employees. Any use of the English language in a building where “government business is conducted” is immediately classified as SECRET/NOFORN. Any conversations with the President or White House Press Conferences are classified as TOP SECRET.  The sponsors of this bill are unknown, as their sponsorship was retroactively classified by the passage of the bill.

a FOIA request can be filed to read the constitution but unfortunately FOIA is also classified now

7. A rider added by Sen. Inhofe expands the Default Classification Amendment to include the constitution.  All public versions of the Constitution now read “We the people, [REDACTED].” Citation of the Constitution in open session of congress can now be prosecuted under the Espionage Act.

8. The Look Out Behind You Amendment specifies that the American public be informed if the calls are coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!

9. The Huge Subsidies to Bribe Senators Who Pretend to be Principled Amendment, also known as the Lincoln-Nelson Amendment, specifies that Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson be allowed to “back up a truck to Fort Knox and take whatever they want as long as they stop talking to the media right now.”

10. The Internet List-Based Comedy Amendment specifies that “lists of items intended for either comedic effect, the provocation of discussion, or both” are “incredibly fucking lazy” and that anyone who produces one “should just fucking kill themselves.” A rider was added noting that, “if Google would change their algorithm so suicide increased a site’s page rank, we could solve this problem overnight.”

Everyone loves Anime. Thanks to Goku and Optimus Prime, Anime has really “hit the big time.” For the uninitated, approaching this complex, uniquely Japanese art form can be daunting, and many people end up never enjoying and exploring its depth and richness. Fortunately, I’m here to help with a series of guides to popular Animes that I may or may not have seen. For my inaugural guide, I present to you a guide to the most popular giant robot Anime of all time that is not Transformers: GUNDAM.

The GUNDAM universe is the most storied and complex Anime Reality (or AniRe) of them all, and the sheer scale of it can make it difficult for the uninitiated to follow. Unlike most AniRes, the various GUNDAM series take place in different universes, but they all share a few defining characteristics:

• It is made by the Japanese manga-ka Tomino-chan.
• There is a robot named “GUNDAM,” which is an acronym for “Gundam Universe Newtype Device Advanced Machine”
• The main character is Ray Amano (the inspiration for the character Ray Romano from the hit show Everybody Loves Raymond) although sometimes he goes by different names and disguises himself.
• There is outer space.
• The villian is Zechs Marquise, who usually wears a mask, because of a horrible disfigurement.
• There is a Stars War.
• There is a cute robot named Haro, which is primarily used to take upskirt photos of female characters that are then packaged as collectibles with GUNDAM model kits.

So where to begin? Well fortunately, I’ve written up some information about the most important series and characters so you can find out for yourself!

THE SERIES

GUNDAM: The Robot From the Stars! (1979)

The original series that launched it all, GUNDAM: The Robot From the Stars! follows a young Ray Amano’s actions through a one-year war known simply as “The First Great Stars War.” Ray discovers a friendly robot from space named GUNDAM, and immediately kills and disembowls him, only to discover he is powered by a deadly nuclear reactor. This is not just commentary on World War II, but also a general commentary on Japanese isolationism and imperialism. Also, GUNDAM’s name is a reference to Japan’s most hated public figure, Chinese Pacifist and Human Rights Activist Gong Dam, making the brutally graphic evisceration of the robot something of a cathartic moment for the Japanese public, though this reference flies over most western viewer’s heads.

One Ray has hollowed out GUNDAM, he lives inside the robot and uses it to fight the mysterious villain known only as Zechs. Zechs wears a mask to hide his real identity: Zechs Marquise, pilot of the Anti-GUNDAM. Zechs and Ray end up on opposite sides of the First Great Stars War, with Zechs fighting for the fascist space nation of Zeon, and Ray fighting for the space nation of Earth. Their conflict finally comes to a head when the girl they both love, Lalah, turns out to be 17, which is far too old for her to be a sexual object. In light of this, the two wander off into the distance, wandering from town to town and righting wrongs.

Though this series could not fulfill creator Tomino-chan’s grand vision due to technical limitations (Animes would not figure out how to make the pictures move for another two years!) it was embraced by the Japanese public for its numerous overt calls for the death of Gong Dam.

GUNDAM 2: Z-GUNDAM (1985) and GUNDAM 2: Z-GUNDAM 2 (1986)

In these sequel series, the Earth is once again endangered by the space Empire of Zeon, and only the military force known as the Titans can stop them! In this series, Ray takes the name Camel Biden to hide his identity as he works in secret with his former ally, Zechs Marquise, who, though disguised as Char the Aznable, is referred to throughout the series as “Quattro Bajeena,” a Spanish term meaning “Four Vaginas.” The reference here is obvious to any student of Asian culture.

While working together to stop the evil space invaders of Zeon in the Second Great Stars War, Ray and Zechs end up learning the true meaning of love from a young girl named Elpeo Puru, and defeat the evil Paptimus Scirocco in a climactic battle on the asteroid Zeonia.

This series comes from Tomino-chan’s dark period, a time shortly after Gong Dam was acquitted of the charges of crimes against humanity levied by a Japanese nation tired of Gong Dam’s constant fiction that there was such a thing as a place called “Nanking,” or that there was even such a crime as “Rape.” Like most of the Japanese public, Tomino-chan was depressed by this miscarriage of justice, resulting in the darkest ending of any GUNDAM series. A nation was shocked when, at the conclusion of the series, Elpeo Puru not only refused to have sex with Ray and Zechs, but that the two protagonists did not have sex with her anyway. Also, every single character was diagnosed with cancer in the last scene, even those who had died earlier in the series.

GUNDAM Wing (1995)

GUNDAM Wing (in Japan, Winged Suit GUNDAM, Fly For Justice!) was Tomino-chan’s first series after his suicide attempt during a live broadcast of a Anime Otaku Friendship Hour, Japan’s most popular talk show. It is a remake of the original GUNDAM and widely regarded as the definitive GUNDAM series.

Due to legal issues with Warner Brothers over the rights to the name “Ray Amano” during the scripting process, the character was simply referred to as “Hero” throughout the script. When it came time to record the voices for the show, a name had still not been decided on, so the actors recorded all of their lines as written, with the intent to digitally replace the name with “Ray” when the legal issues were worked out, but the project ran out of money before that could happen.

Aside from this name change, the main differences between GUNDAM Wing and the original GUNDAM are:

• Zechs Marquise disguises himself as Treize Kushrinada and hires the pilot Milliardo Peacecraft to pretend to be him.
• The character of Lalah is advanced to the age of 22, renamed Relena, and has no romantic involvement with any character.
• GUNDAM is not initially a friendly robot, although it is revealed in a flashback sequence that Hero’s dad, Ray Amano, Sr., killed the robot and hid its corpse for his child to find.
• There are four other protagonists who help Hero: Duo, Trowa, Quattro Bajeena, and Batman. Batman was a late addition to the cast gained from the Warner Brothers settlement, which is why all of his scenes are recorded as live-action stunts and carefully edited into existing footage.

So what is it that has made GUNDAM Wing the one true GUNDAM series in fans’ hearts? Quite simply, it’s the fact that all of the GUNDAM robots in it are actually naked children who are piloted through groping. Western “gaijin” audiences only saw a heavily-edited version that used digital trickery and footage from an unreleased GUNDAM series to make it seem like the groping was actually the act of piloting a mobile suit.

Evangelion (1995)

Evangelion was Tomino-chan’s boldest and most controversial work. The GUNDAM robots in it are referred to only as “ANGELS,” an acronym for “Advanced Newtype Gundam Extraterrestrial Launch System” invented by the special organization “NERVE.” This is a prequel to the GUNDAM series that covers Ray Amano’s youth as an anti-GUNDAM pilot fighting off a GUNDAM assault on Earth. The show has a running gag wherein characters constantly refer to him as “Shinji” and then cut him off before he can protest that it is not his name.

This series is known for its bold symbolism and many references to Christianity. The obvious connection between “ANGELS” and the giant robots in the Gospel of Mark allow Tomino-chan to comment on man’s relationship to God. The episode in which Ray is crucified by an ANGEL while singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is considered by many critics to be the boldest visual statement of Tomino-chan’s career. Ray’s death at the end of the prequel series is also a fascinating post-modern look at the relationship between related stories, although it is explained in the sequel movie, End of Evangelion, that Ray’s death was actually a dream Zechs had during the events of GUNDAM Wing.

Despite critical acclaim, Evangelion remains the least popular of all the GUNDAM series, largely due to the fact that the most popular character, Zechs, does not appear in it.

Mobile Fighter G-GUNDAM (1994)

Mobile Fighter G-GUNDAM is not the first GUNDAM series to take place outside the established GUNDAM Universe, but it is the first one to

The Villain of G-Gundam: The Spirit of Dutchland

be released outside of Japan. This was an intentional decision, as the plot of the series revolves entirely around an elaborately slanderous allegory wherein the Dutch are wiped from the face of the Earth for their many crimes. Because this series takes place outside of the regular GUNDAM-verse, the protagonist in this series is not Ray Amano, though it is strongly hinted that Ray Amano is his father. His name is Domon Casshern, and he is an amateur GUNDAM fighter who uses his skills to kill every man woman and child who has ever worn wooden shoes. In the final conflict between himself and The Spirit of Dutchland (pictured), Domon takes the entire world’s focused hatred of the Dutch and becomes the Heart King, ending the menace once and for all.

It is widely regarded as the happiest Gundam series, as no characters die who are not wretched, cretinous Dutchmen. Some condemned its strong pro-genocide message as “inappropriate, no matter how much the bastard Dutch deserve it,” but these criticisms were quite rare.

THE CHARACTERS

Ray Amano

Ray Amano is the star of all the GUNDAM series in the main timeline known as “GUNDAM Century.” Though he spends most of his time fighting Zechs in GUNDAM, there are also glimpses into his home life, where he has to deal with overbearing parents, Fred Williard, and an awful nagging shrew of a wife named Debra. The series represents him as something of an “everyman,” by making him 15 years old to appeal to the two largest markets in Japan: adolescent boys and adults who want to appeal to adolescent boys. He is voiced by legendary voice actor Brad Swaile.

Zechs Marquise

the inspiration for the term "newtype"

Zechs’ name is a bit of a pun about the original actor slated to voice his role, porn star Mr. Marcus or, as he is known in Japan, “Sexy Marcus.” When the casting fell through and they finally had to settle for the voice talents of Shuichi Ikeda, the name “Sexy Marcus” was adjusted to “Zechs Marquise.” Often, Zechs is referred to as “Char the Aznable,” another pun referring to all the azns that were charred when we dropped nuclear bombs on Asia. Zechs is an icon in Japan, comparable to Darth Vader in the United States, or the Queen in Britain. His catchphrase, “Let the purge begin!” is plastered on merchandise and billboards all across Japan.

Zechs is interesting in GUNDAM lore because he is the first “NewType,” a being who has evolved in space to be exclusively attracted to prepubescent girls. The term “NewType” is a reference to the popular western Anime Magazine.

GUNDAM

The eponymous friendly robot GUNDAM comes from a race of benevolent robot-people far beyond the stars. His friendliness and message of peace and respect makes it all the more shocking when Ray kills and eviscerates him. However, when it is revealed that he actually had a nuclear device in his chest, the audience understands that GUNDAM’s supposedly peaceful words were nothing more than a facade to hide the radioactive lies about human rights abuses that would destroy Japan. Gong Dam seems to have taken this obvious slight with good humor and grace, and will gladly sign any GUNDAM merchandise you bring to him at Anime Conventions, though he only appears at ones held in nations without an extradition treaty with Japan.

Elpeo Puru

Elpeo Puru’s name is actually a mistranscription—she is in fact named Elpeo Ple. Unfortunately, due to Japanese difficulty pronouncing the “L” sound (see sidebar) her name was mistranslated for western audiences who never realized she was named after the popular Japanese magazine “Lemon People” or “L People,” a magazine featuring illustrations of people engaging in the traditional Japanese pasttime of fucking children. Now that you know this, have fun trying to watch GUNDAM 2: Z-GUNDAM 2.

Batman

After witnessing his parents’ murder as a child, Bruce Wayne devoted his life to ending crime in Gotham City. Through a regimen of intense training of mind, body, and spirit, he brought himself to the peak of human potential. Now he stalks the streets of Gotham City, striking fear into the hearts of criminals everywhere as…the Batman!

* * * * *

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little trip through the world of GUNDAM. With these basics, you have all you need to sit back and fully enjoy Tomino-chan’s genius. Good luck and, until next time, “may the GUNDAM be with you!”

Spacklecube is pleased to have a guest post from one of the talented visual artists of Thor, Roderick Halfmansson, who offers an exclusive insight into the concept and design process of Jotunheim, home to the hulking frost giants.  Enjoy this behind the scenes look at the film Entertainment Weekly called “not art”!

Hello everyone, I’m Roderick Halfmansson, a concept illustrator for Thor, and I’m quite pleased to be able to offer you a breakdown of the creative process behind the creation of Jotunheim.  I was given very complex directions by director Kenneth Branagh, who had a distinct visual design in mind for the entire film.  He said to me, “Rod’rick, my beloved wool-sack, what mutter you?  ’Tis surely time we sat ‘pon these leather-bound seats and spoke of that grand design, that Jotunheim, that it might be splash’d ‘cross the screen to the astonishment of those lovers of thou work, O cinema!  This land you create, my sky-minded flax-worshipper, shall be a world in death, lying ’bout shrouded in darkness and haunted by such wretched monsters, the giants of frost.  Now to work with you, bottle-ale rascal!  I am off to create that which shall be held in regard by all!”

With these instructions I set to the task of fulfilling the director’s grand authorial vision by thinking, “If I were a Frost Giant, where would I live?”  The answer quickly came to me: “In any first person shooter made in the 1990s.”  So I immediately set to work on a concept render of the grand hall of the Frost Giants:

The word "QUAKE" is written on the central arch, as a warning to all those who enter the Frost Giants' presence

Then, using the 3d model as a reference, I created a concept illustration for Mr. Branagh:

I sketch out the design freehand, and then scan and digitally render the image in Photoshop.

Armed with this early concept, I went to Mr. Branagh for immediate feedback, and got it.  ”Alas, thy design is great yet flawed.  These earthy tones, nature’s browns and grays and grayish-browns, they are not the colors of the Frost Giants, whose Jotunheim is a land of ice.  Get thee to a nunnery, Rod’rick, and return when you have something to offer me with that grand palette of the frigid,” he said.

After clarifying that this meant he wanted it bluer, I took the concept illustration back to Photoshop and began playing with the palette until I got a more satisfying color scheme:

The blue tones used in this redesign were inspired by the color blue.

I returned to Mr. Branagh, who once again had further advice on how to achieve his directorial vision.

“This brightly-lit land is not dying, you wench-trodden bakery-smith!  ’Tis a rainbow of light and song compar’d to the shadows in which the monstrous giants lurk.  Begone from my sight, and return not until thou hast created shadows within which can lurk the hulking Frost Giants of Jotunheim, a worthy opponent for the Mighty Thor!”

I took the Great Thespian’s (at this point we were legally obligated to refer to Mr. Branagh by this title) criticisms to heart, and worked on an entirely new design, one that could adequately conceal the menace of the mighty Frost Giants.  Within the week, I returned to Mr. Branagh with this:

For this design, I took another artist's work as inspiration and, using Photoshop, blurred out the part of the image where he signed it.

Mr. Branagh was furious when he saw this design.  ”You pusillanimous lager-headed bat-swine!  What knave art thou to come before me with this brightly-lit playground for children?  I ask for but a small change, and you shift the very earth ‘neath my feet!  Return thy idiocy to its original form, and bring unto me what I have asked: that brilliant Jotunheim that sprang forth from thine head fully-formed like ‘Thena from ‘Eus, but contain’d of more shadows that the sinister forms of the Frost Giants might conceal themselves within!”

So I did this:

I didn't feel like taking out the light on the left side so I just hoped Sir (the new contract specified he was to be referred to by this title) Kenneth Branagh wouldn't notice it.

He loved it, saying, “Belov’d Rod’rick, thine ‘ye strik’s tru’ w’th th’s cr’ation.  ’Tis ‘n art’fice l’ke n’one oth’r.  ”””””’ ”” ” ””’.”  At this point he was so excited he was removing every letter he said and replacing it with an apostrophe, so I just left the design on his desk and took off, figuring he could have an assistant email me.  It turned out he was actually having a stroke and I had left him to die, so I was pretty well fired at that point.  He may have removed my name from the credits and ensured I will never work again, but he did use my concept design for Jotunheim!

He sat in his Minneapolis hotel room, staring at the silver trophy in the shape of an extruded star before him. It was polished to a mirror sheen, and in it he could see his distorted face, still dirty from the game. Across his reflected face were etched the words:

Pete Rozelle
Trophy

Super Bowl XXVI

Most Valuable Player

John Offerdahl

He just kept looking at it, like a fish trying to comprehend a submarine. It didn’t seem real to him. But this had been a season of unreality for him. Charles Haley had had a career year, blowing away Mark Gastineau’s record of 22 sacks by a full 7 on the season. That was amazing. Unless you looked up at the number one spot on the sack list: John Offerdahl (MIA) – 102.

102.

It was difficult for him to comprehend that number. There were so many numbers that were difficult for him to comprehend: 15-0-1, the record of the Miami Dolphins in a year they weren’t expected to go much above .500. 7, the number of sacks he had in the Super Bowl. 2, the number of fumbles he forced in the Super Bowl. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe it had happened, it was just that he didn’t believe he had done it. Nothing had made sense this season.

You would think after the first few games, after blowing away the single-season sack record barely a quarter of the way through the season, the offenses would adjust. They’d change their looks, or double team him, or have somebody fill the hole between the center and left guard he busted through every time, but they didn’t. The linesmen would fall into their blocks against the defensive ends and nose guard, and he would just slip from his linebacker position through two of them, get a yard or two into the backfield, and then cut towards the quarterback. If there was a running back, he would wait until Offerdahl was well into the pocket before even attempting a block, and all he needed to do was make a quick move to totally avoid that.

Don Shula coached entirely against the run; he trusted that Offerdahl would take care of the pass. And while sometimes a breakdown in coverage would occur quickly enough the quarterback could get the pass off before Offerdahl was in his face, the majority of the time a pass play had no chance. Which isn’t to say that Offerdahl was ineffective against the run; generally on any run up the middle he’d meet up with the fullback right in the running lane and the back would just try to push forward, making no cut, just bouncing off and running into his lead blocker again and again in hopes it would help him secure the block. But over half the time, Offerdahl would knock the lead blocker down and just stuff the run for a 1 or 2 yard loss. He had, in the offseason, become the greatest defensive player to ever play the game.

So why wasn’t he happy? Why couldn’t he feel anything at all? He kept staring at the trophy, at the blocky, distorted reflection of his face. It wasn’t like he wasn’t a good football player; he’d made the Pro Bowl every year so far, and he had the career tackles record at WMU. It was just that he wasn’t this good. Nobody was this good. He had found the peak of human achievement, and then just blown it out of the water.

John Offerdahl knew that he was a talented athlete and a good enough guy, but he wasn’t beyond the peak of human perfection. Something had conspired to do this, and he had been a part of it. Maybe not a willing actor, but he had played his role perfectly, and so had everyone else. He had free will, though, and he wasn’t going to let something control him.

As he slid the pistol into his mouth, he thought of his wife, whose name he couldn’t remember, and the restaurant he’d dreamed of opening after he retired. If it was going to happen, it wasn’t going to happen in this world. Nothing else was.

John Offerdahl, the greatest defensive football player ever, was found dead in his hotel room at 4:27 AM on January 27th, 1991 by a member of the Mighty Bombjack Show.

At the end of The Bridge on the River Kwai, there’s a moment where Col. Nicholson, played by Alec Guinness, realizes the enormity of what his obsession has done to him. The bridge to which he has devoted so much is, as it has always been, a tool of the enemy. By protecting it, he has betrayed his allies. His singular focus has blinded him to the larger world, and the ramifications for that become clear as he hears the whistle of the approaching train. “What have I done?” he asks.

* * * * *

Our response, as Americans, to the death of Osama Bin Laden, is saddening but not entirely unexpected. The action movie mentality that has pervaded our entire War on Terror demands a climax in which the villain is made to pay for his crimes. That’s what we’ve gotten now, after ten long years, and it’s even been delivered like a true action movie climax, with Navy SEALS storming a terrorist compound and killing the leader in a firefight. The problem is, the denouement is indefinite, and the results of our actions over the past 10 years will not disappear as the end credits roll.

* * * * *

Obama’s announcement was a political speech. It wasn’t an address to the nation about the accomplishment of a long-held security goal, it was the launch of his 2012 re-election campaign. That’s why he spent so much time telling us how much we have lost, and how much we have sacrificed in the name of this war. He made it about our sacrifices, how great we are as a nation, and how just. Clearly, if Bin Laden was the bad guy, whoever kills him must be the good guy, right?

The whole speech was patronizing, and only compounded by the reactions to it. When a shot of the crowd gathered outside of the White House briefly showed two stereotypical “bros” chest bumping and high-fiving one another, I immediately thought of Obama’s words about how “Americans understand the costs of war.” Do we really? Some of us do, certainly, but overall the vast majority of us have been insulated from these costs. Would the people out on the streets be celebrating this event like a sports victory if they actually did know the costs of war?

Of course, it’s not entirely our fault. The costs have been hidden from us, intentionally, or levied against the vulnerable and defenseless of our nation. The caskets of returning soldiers were not allowed to be seen. The responsibility for our national debt was laid at the feet of the working class. The deaths of civilians in other nations were intentionally muddied so that when the truth finally came out, the news cycle had moved on, if it had even bothered to pay attention in the first place.

* * * * *

8,813 – That’s a conservative estimate of how many civilians have been killed in Afghanistan since September 11. The final death toll for September 11 was 2,997. We’ve almost revisited threefold upon the population of Afghanistan what was visited upon us on that awful day. We don’t have to worry about that, though, because our cause was right. We know what sacrifice is, because that’s what we’re told.

Sacrifice is something we do to other people.

* * * * *

That figure doesn’t even include civilian casualties in Pakistan. Or Iraq. Or Yemen. Our actions over the past decade have cost nearly one million civilian lives in the Middle East. Imagine what you would do to somebody responsible for the death of your mother or father, your wife or your husband, your daughter or son. If every single innocent who has died in the Middle East has just one person who cares for them the way you care for your loved ones, consider how many potential terrorists we have created. Consider how much they would hate us, and consider if you could even blame them for it.

In the process of hunting down and killing Bin Laden, our various detours have undoubtedly caused more people to hate us than the insane rantings of that fundamentalist lunatic ever could. No wonder he had a mansion in Pakistan. He could retire, because we were doing his work for him.

* * * * *

Omar Khadr turns 25 in September.  It will be his 9th birthday spent in Guantanamo bay—over a third of his life. When he is finally released, over half of his life will have been spent imprisoned by the United States, by us.

When Khadr was 15 years old, he was involved in a firefight between American troops and Afghani militants. He is alleged to have thrown a grenade that killed one of those soldiers.  Being blinded by shrapnel and shot twice would seem to be more punishment than any 15-year-old would deserve for an act of debatable criminality—the U.S. was an invading force, after all—but it seems that’s not nearly enough punishment for us.

First, he was taken to Bagram Air Force base and in all likelihood tortured. It is alleged that he was denied pain medication for his gunshot wounds, and even that he was intentionally denied surgery that could have prevented the loss of sight in his left eye. From Bagram, he was taken to Guantanamo Bay and likely tortured again.  He participated in hunger strikes as the government worked on their case against him, the first trial of a child soldier in the modern era, for the crime of throwing a grenade on a battlefield.

Khadr recently plead guilty to the charges against him in exchange for an eight year prison sentence. But when the government has made it clear they believe you can be detained indefinitely, can any plea bargain that results in less than life imprisonment be genuine?

How sick and twisted must a society be when it looks at someone like Omar Khadr and sees not someone who needs help, but someone who deserves punishment?

* * * * *

This, of course, changes nothing.  It’s been a consistent refrain in the discussions of Bin Laden’s death but never followed up on with the obvious question: if this changes nothing, why did we do it? The only answers that make any sense are the least flattering. We did it for revenge, for pride, maybe even for politics. We didn’t do it to make ourselves or the world safer.

* * * * *

So, we see the death of Bin Laden and we celebrate, because we cannot see the death and destruction our obsession has wrought. It is kept far from us, away from our sight, and what little does make it to us is hidden or obfuscated. The sacrifices we do encounter are ephemeral concepts like liberty and justice, things we don’t realize the value of until we need them—and by then it’s too late. We’ve also made it possible, and even easy to ignore the chaos and destruction we’ve created.

We need to stop ignoring it. We need to ask ourselves, “What have we done?”

We won’t like the answer, but what we learn will be worth it.