Part VII
Have I mentioned I have a glass jaw?
I was only able to piece together what happened after I left the ship through overhearing stories told to the Police and amongst the crew. John and Dr. Randall just shrugged off queries and I knew better than to try to pursue it. Maybe in a couple years or so it will be a story, but right now it was too fresh for them to want to recount for the masses.
John left four men on the deck, one of them dead, before dropping through the skylight on the quarterdeck to the aft cabin to retrieve the pistol he had brought with him. He then waited in his bunk for the pirates to take the Captain back to the cabin to open the ship's safe. They did and made the mistake of only sending one while four men using a variety of cheap assault rifles and pistols covered the crew which had been gathered in the main cabin. Five more moved throughout the ship ransacking the bunks for cash, travelers checks, credit cards, laptops, and cell phones.
After John and the captain quietly subdued his guard and another intruder that came to investigate, John went back up on deck to the focs'l hatch to quietly take out the two that had gone forward while the Captain cleared aft. Then John moved into the main cabin.
The need for stealth past, he drew his weapon and dropped one and then another that was trying to pull Jackie up to use as a human shield "without even blinking" as Will put it. This started a stampede of people trying to get out of the way while, with the best of intentions, some of the crew to grabbed the third gunman and wrestled him to the ground. This held John up as he tried to pursue the last who fled aft, probably hoping to get back the old fishing vessel that was moored to our stern.
By this time, Dr. Randall was in a firefight with it using a captured AK-47. John ran up the ladder of the main cabin to the wetlab and cut the pirate off from flanking the captain at the door of the doghouse. John was subduing him when one of the pirates that had roused himself after being knocked unconscious in the aft cabin came up behind him, gun drawn.
Then John heard the last voice in the world he expected say, "Stop!"
It was Alex.
Standing at the top of the doghouse ladder with a 9mm Glock knock-off, trembling just a bit, in her hands.
She had picked it up off the floor of the main cabin and when she saw the pirate come out of the aft cabin and up the ladder, she followed. John disarmed him and laid him face down on the quarterdeck before slowly, gently taking the gun from her hands as Kevin answered the radio call from the Bluenose, who, having no response to "What is your status, over?" were asking "What the hell was going on over there?" John froze just as the Captain said he had heard the sound of a second boat moving away from the bow. And screaming.
It was snorting seawater that woke me. Sneezing and coughing it up, I lift my aching, ringing head from pool in the bottom of the boat as we bob gently in waves. I can't hear what they are arguing about, the shotgun had gone off practically in my ear, but something is amiss. Why aren't we moving? I pray that I have made the point that I am more trouble than a good time is worth and that they are just going to toss me out. Even with my hands and feet tied I could just "dead man float" until someone came and picked me up. Suddenly the boat rocks as two of them go over the side, swimming for shore as the third does something at the stern and then after a pause, follows.
What the...?
As I pull my gag off, I realize that the water which had been just high enough to cover my shoulder is now in the middle of my chest as I lie on my side. The dumbass shot a hole in the boat.
Well, max-nix. Hopefully they left a knife behind so I could cut myself free and swim back to the ship, or shore, or somewhere. If not, float.
I do not find a knife.
I do find that the scumbags have tied me to the engine.
Shit.
Oh…Fuck!
That's when I start screaming again. Not the angry, wildcat "I'm trying to get attention" screaming of before. I mean horrifically terrified "Oh God - please don't leave me here to die!" screaming. I grew up on a lake, swimming practically before I could walk. Knowing water as intimately I do, I have a healthy caution of drowning.
That caution was kicked into full blown panic when the boat started to slip under as water rushed over the stern.
The benefit or curse of panicking is that you hyperventilate which gives you a good lungful of fresh clean air to suck the O2 out of longer as water closes over your face and you are inexorably dragged under.
But what can you do but struggle? Trying to get your fingers into the knot that is pulled tighter as you are pulled deeper into the black and your lungs burn to exhale and take a breath. My movements start to fumble as my coordination starts to fade.
Suddenly something has grabbed me. In my panic I fight it blindly. I see a flash of pale flesh in the dim light, a light from above.
Wow. You really do see a white light.
I reach for it.
But something is tugging around my ankle, pulling me further down into the darkness as I finally let go. Exhaling my last gasp into the deep as the weight of water fills my lungs and I am free, floating.
The most frightening fact about drowning is that you retain consciousness after the water enters your lungs, your brain running on the leftover oxygen floating in your blood stream. So I can feel the arm around my chest and the air on my face as we break the surface. Air that I need so badly, but can't get to. I'm blacking out as I am hauled over a hard ridge which jams into my diaphragm so that, in the elegant position of being draped over the gunwale, I start coughing up the water from my lungs into the bilge of the second pirate vessel. Taking desperate, wheezing gasps with only half my lung capacity.
The boat rocks as whoever it was who cut me free and dragged me to the surface pulls himself over the side and then helps Kevin lift me into the boat. They try to help, but I slither-crawl away from them to the edge of beam from the hand-held spotlight, kneeling with my butt high in the air and my forehead on the deck as I spend what feels like forever retching up the water in my lungs, the taste of salt and algae in my mouth and burning my nose, until I can take 80% of a breath, still coughing as I roll over and see...
"J-John."
By the time Kevin has guided the old fishing boat back to the Jones, all the deck lights are blazing. Not only has harbor patrol arrived, but several ships of the fleet have sent boats to assist or simply to find out what happened. As he is immediately called aside to answer the Police's questions, John hands me over to one of the doctors of the EMS personnel who have showed up to treat the injured on both sides.
After wrapping a blanket around me and flashing the obligatory light in my eyes (ow), the doctor listens to my lungs and says there is nothing for it but time and more coughing. Then the puts a tongue depressor in my mouth and asks me to bite down. "Looks like the jaw is just bruised. Knocked a couple teeth loose, so you will be on a soft diet for a week or so, but you're very lucky. "
"It wasn't luck," I say thickly, looking in John's direction.
"True. If you really had been lucky, this wouldn't have happened at all. I have to go check on one of the Haitians before they send him ashore. Stay put."
My mind is still in free fall, just starting to be aware of what is going on around me, picking out random details in a sea of activity. I see John pull something from the back of his waistband and hand it to an officer. A graceless piece of back metal that I happen to know is one of, if not the, most reliable and accurate handguns in mass production: The Sig Sauer P-226, favored of several government forces, including the Finnish Army, U.S. Navy Seals, GROM, and...
"Sierra Leone." I blurt. I am relieved that which so much going in around me, no one noticed.
Soon I am the girl of the hour as another officer comes over the question me, sending a woman to question the most beat-up woman. I am in no shape to create a cohesive narrative, but she is patient and adept at guiding me through it a step at a time. John finishes and comes over to hear what happened after we parted ways on the foredeck.
I get to the part where I attacked my captor, and why.
"That almost got you killed," the officer comments.
"I was raped when I was 18. I swore that if it happened again someone was going to die. Either it would be him or it would be me, but somebody was going to die." I say flatly.
John blinks a few times as realization and sympathy flood his eyes. He takes a deep breath and sits down next to me, threading his fingers through mine and holding my hand tightly through the rest of the questioning. When the officer moves on, he brushes the hair back from my face with a gentle touch. "You alright?"
I wish I could take a deep breath, but I squeeze his hand instead. "Yeah….Thank you." I croak as he kisses my forehead. It sounds so inadequate. "Are you o.k.?"
"I'm fine." His expression is halfway between bemused and touched.
"Alex?"
He takes a deep breath before answering, a dark shadow passing through his eyes. "Shaken up, but alright."
"You should go to her."
"... I don't think you should be left alone." He looks concerned, confused, and a little bit hurt.
"I'm o.k. I may wake up screaming in a week, but right now I'm o.k. I do appreciate your concern John, I do, but your daughter probably needs you more right now."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. Go on."
He starts to kiss me, but remembering my jaw touches his lips to the corner of mine before moving off to find his daughter.
It takes forever for the police move through the vessel, gathering evidence, removing bodies (four), interviewing everyone on deck while they work below. The crew are in shock, some dazed, some with frayed nerves keeping them on edge, some in tears. "Freaked" would be the appropriate word. The Captain wanders among them, talking gently to those in the most need, a hand on the shoulder for those holding it together. Kevin gets a hearty handshake and praise for stepping up so quickly to help John get me back. At that reminder, he also gets a kiss on the cheek from me. Kevin may be a big kid, but he is also a good man.
I wish I had more to give, but I can only sit among them and hold Rene's hand as she periodically shivers and cries or is silent. John stops by a couple times to check on me before returning to Alex. By the third time, I have spread the blanket on the deck and curled up on it.
Some of the crew go to other ships for the night, too shaken to sleep on the Jones. After the police clear the scene, the Captain insists that some volunteers from the EMS crowd go down to mop up the bloodstains before we retire. It's a ship so everything is pretty easy to clean, but the sun is edging the horizon before we can go below.
My first stop is the shower to get rid of the salt. At best the freshwater shower only goes to a vaguely warm, but I stand under it for a long time anyway. When I come out, John is by Alex's bunk. I stay out of sight behind the foc'sl steps to give them some privacy.
"You should get some sleep, sweetheart."
"Is…"
"What?"
"Is that what you do?"
"…Yeah."
"And the people you…are they always like that? Hurting people?"
"Most of the time…I wish I could tell you it's that simple sweetheart. They tell me what I do is the for the best, but...sometimes I have to guess what the best thing is."
"…Even for girls that get angry at you for being out saving the world? "
"...Lexie, you are my world." John leans in to hug his daughter. "I love you."
"I love you too."
He holds her for a moment more before kissing her forehead and starting to move off.
"Dad...can you stay. Please?"
"Sure I can, baby. Sure." He strokes her hair."I'll be right here."
"Thanks."
He tucks her in and pulls the curtain to before taking the middle platform-step on the stair-ladder between his daughter's bunk and mine. I join him there in the pale morning light, touching his still bare foot with my own.
"If you say "Yipee-ki-yay, mother fucker" I will have to kill you," he whispers, looking down at our toes.
I smirk. I had thought of saying that, but "I was trying to find some clever way to bring up "Who Dares Wins.""
He doesn't look at me but leans back, sighing. "I was wondering when you would put that together. What finally tipped you off?"
"The 226. I should have started suspecting it when you mentioned Sierra Leone. I feel like such an idiot. But those two, and your reticence to discuss the latter parts of your enlistment, the vagaries. And then what you do for a living now and then what you were able to do tonight. You're in the 21st now, right? Albany Street?" speaking of one of the S.A.S. regiments of reservist Territorial Army.
"...Yeah. That's right."
I say nothing but take his hand. He can't talk about it, so I don't ask.
Instead after a few moments he leans forward again and says my name quietly. "...what happened?"
"Before?" He nods and then waits me out this time. "...I was dating someone, someone who was on the wagon for cocaine use when we started dating. And who fell of it one night. I was young, I had no idea there was something wrong with him. I just thought he was he was kind of "off" when he picked me up. And...things went from being fun to me being held down, screaming at him to stop while he just looked through me like I wasn't even there...Then as he passed out he said, "You'll have to remind me tomorrow, because we did some really kinky stuff tonight."...as if submission equaled wanting... It was so long ago, "date rape" wasn't even a prevalent term yet, so I didn't go to the police. I just never saw him again...It was a long time and a lot of therapy ago. I'm o.k. That is an oath I made to myself, but I'm o.k."
John takes me in his arms, holding me tightly and stroking my back. I don't know how much of it is for me or for him, but I relax into him, savoring his strength and his gentle kiss before I let him send me to bed.
At some point I wake, having rolled over on my bruised jaw. John's still there, staring off into the middle distance as he stands, or in this case sits, sentinel over his little girl. A father's duty, gladly given for perhaps the last time.
We remain in port for another two days before we are cleared to go. As we are an American ship, they are anxious to get everything squared away so that no blame can be laid on the Haitian government. We get visitors. The volunteers and organizers we were working with are sincere in their concern, but not surprised. Things are desperate here and many of the prisons were destroyed in the quake. The politicians express proper shock and regret such a thing would happen, while hinting less than subtly that if the Americans had come through with the promised funding, they would have been able to keep criminals off the streets.
John stays out of sight during these visits, letting Dr. Randall and the crew take the credit for repelling the boarding party.
I stay with him, not wanting to spend my 15 minutes of fame as "the plucky victim."
"Are you o.k.?" I ask as we hide out in wetlab. Since the attack John has been quiet, tense.
"I'm fine," he reassures quickly, squeezing my hand.
I'm not an idiot. "John, they threatened Lexie."
For a moment, his fingers almost crush mine as he looks at them. He says nothing. Now that the cards are on the table, he is clearly shaken but he doesn't need to say that.
"It's o.k. she's o.k. now." I reassure. Another hug, hugs are good. Even when you are being half smooshed.
"I never thought it would follow me," he murmurs in my ear. "I never wanted Lexie exposed to this. Christ, I used to get mardy over her getting vaccinated for school..."
"She's your little girl, of course you want to protect her. But she's a young woman now and it's a big world. Things happen everywhere. In Los Angeles, in London. You saved us, those men can't hurt us anymore. But," I pull back, touching his face. "...you can't keep the entire world out all the time. She has a good heart and a good head on her shoulders, something she clearly got from you. I think she's going to be o.k. John. It's going to be o.k."
He says nothing, but pulls me back into a long, fierce embrace that finally ends in a grateful look and a smacking kiss on the forehead.
The crew's reaction has been a little harder for John to deal with. Some, like Kevin and Lauren, have made a pointed effort to return to normalcy, but some have not. The odder responses range from being held in sort of a silent awe, to being excitedly grilled on his war experiences (fat lot of luck there), to being avoided outright. Unfortunately Rene is one of the latter group that is having a hard time being on a ship with a man she watched kill two people.
"He didn't have to do that! We could have just let them take our stuff and go. It wasn't necessary to kill them!" she hisses at Kevin, hoping to be out of earshot.
"We don't know that was all they were after Rene. Most of the pirates operating in the world seize the vessel and either ransom or murder the crew. They tried to use Jackie as a human shield. They almost killed Kip, they threatened to rape her. Do you really want to trust that they would have satisfied with your iPhone?"
Intellectually she understands, but she and a few others are not mollified, unable to reconcile the down to earth, quiet man they sit with over meals to the trained solider they saw that night.
I appreciate the idealism of their outlook and truly hope that someday we do live in a world where killing is truly abhorrent, but after 5,000 years of human history we have not been able to shake it. I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Not that I think killing is hunky-dory in everyday society, far from it, but I can accept that a warm, vibrant man capable of such gentleness is also capable of killing to defend those he loves. Maybe it is because I come from a military family, or maybe because of my neo-pagan outlook, I don't have a problem reconciling life and death, creation and destruction, in the same person. Our destructive tendencies are an old, primal part of us that western society treats as a titillating, dirty little taboo to be horrifically fascinated with rather than accepted for what it is. The capacity doesn't scare me. We are all capable of violence. Some of us just deal with it more openly, and therefore walk a sharper knife edge, than others. John is still John to me, this has not changed how I see him.
Though I am forced to admit it the "the event", as it is swiftly euphemized, has changed how he sees me. When he isn't working or hovering about Alex, who she seems to be startled by but enjoying it, he's hovering around me. Not in obvious cloying solitude, but what I know amounts to that for him. The wicked flirtatious looks are replaced by concern, the obvious jokes replaced with "are you o.k.?", the playful hand on my ass with tender hugs and gentles touches on my arm.
I know it's irrational and utterly ungrateful on my part. After seeing the bruises on my pale skin in mirror I understand where he is coming from and intellectually I appreciate it. But after our first day at sea again, I find myself avoiding him. I tell myself his behavior has begun to grate, but the truth is harder to come to. The care in his voice drives a warm spike home in my chest and my heart freezes over in reaction. I can't take it right now. Part of me fights to be free of it as much as another part wants to fall into it.
No one is really fine. The weather is, though the breezes are a bit weak the second day out, resulting in a calm which keeps the engines on. However, between the silences and little knots of discussion it's clear morale has taken a hit. After a subdued lunch, the captain throws down his napkin and orders John the cut the engines while he goes above with A-watch to back the sails and angle the rudder in order to "heave to", bringing the boat to a halt in the middle of the wide blue sea.
"All you morose buggars OFF my ship. NOW!" he shouts down the stairs into the main cabin.
Normally a "Swim Call" would be greeted with shouts of joy and everyone rushing to their bunks to get into a swim suit and then up on deck fling ourselves off the side of the ship, but now people approach the rare recreation dutifully, the excitement building slowly in a low murmur.
When I come up and make my way to the science deck where they have slung a rope ladder over the side, I find everyone staring at me.
"Er...What?"
"You first."
Oh good lord, they think I have a phobia. How redicu...
Oh...crud.
I do find myself hesitating over the dark blue water that is, for all intensive purposes, bottomless.
"Oh, fuck this."
I turn and march the bow, hearing the soft "aww" of disappointment turn into laughter and shouts of encouragement as I climb out to the end of the bowsprit and, before I can stop myself again, execute a perfect cannon ball. From then on it's an hour long free-for-all of splashing and laughing as people climb up on deck and throw themselves off in the most imaginative ways possible.
After some cajoling from his daughter and a couple others and what looks like an order from the deck, John appears his swim trunks (a sight that does set my heart racing and other parts of me a simmer) and waves us back before running out and doing a somersault off the science deck. After climbing the chains of the headrig, he attempts another off the bowsprit, but a friendly shove from Kevin results in something between a tuck and a sprawl and a very large splash.
Everyone is trying to keep from drowning while laughing, welcoming John Porter, Human Being, back into the fold as he playfully shoves his daughter under for giving him too much of a hard time.
The clouds on the horizon catch up to us in the evening as B-watch comes on, bringing with it spits of light rain and fantastic winds from our starboard quarter on a broad reach. As we are traveling with the current, the Captain takes the opportunity to see what the John Paul Jones can really do. The watch, plus several volunteers who are eager to get in on the fun, move up and down the deck in their colorful foul weather jackets over their shorts or trousers, pulling on halyards and sheets to make clouds of canvas bloom in the grey light.
I take the first spell at the helm, but steering a ship is like a lot of things in blue water sailing: Equal parts skill and art. It takes a feel for how she is responding to the force of the water over her rudder, transmitted by the pressure and little jerks of the wheel spokes in your hands, and the forces on the sails above with an instinct on how best to handle her with a light touch to nudge her where she needs to be. Instincts and a light touch I really don't have.
"Alex. Take the wheel."
"You sure?" She says, watching the heel of the ship as she plows through the swell.
"You're better at this than I am. Go for it."
"I relieve you," she recites the formula, taking the wheel from my hand.
"I stand relieved," I reply before throwing myself on the deck to help pull the braces of the yard arms to so that the square sails are angled to catch the wind best.
This is why I do it, I watch the Jones pick up speed, skipping lively through the waves as the watch moves forward to set the raffee, a small triangular sail at the top of the foremast. Time doesn't move, but we do. No yesterdays, no tomorrows, just moments of action and reaction. The feel of the living rope in your hand, the living ship under your feet, as your watch works together to bring out her best. There is is no joy like sailing tall ship on a day like this.
John understands, I think as I watch him and Will haul away at the raffee halyard. Though perhaps for him it is less about the poetry of motion and more about the simple challenge of having a job to do and doing it without complications. Or getting shot at.
As we walk back to the quarter deck to enjoy the ride, and I slide my hand in his and pull him aside for a quick kiss, savoring the feel of his soft lips on mine, the stubble of his chin against my skin. But only for a brief moment before moving away.
Sending mixed messages like that is not fair, I know it isn't, but it's all I can give and all I can take right now. More than that scratches the surface of something curled up and painful.
We strike the raffee in the dark and bring her speed down to something a little saner for night sailing, turning it over to C-watch and turning in at one. I feel the wind on my face coming from the focs'l hatch, staying in the moment of the motion of the ship and the sound of the ocean passing by the hull next my head as she rocks me to sleep.
Only to wake a couple hours later. Not screaming, but coughing and gasping for air. An ice pick of terror in my chest and a cold sweat on my skin. I manage to keep from throwing up and crawl up the ladder on deck to curl up into a ball against the cool hull as I struggle to escape their voices and the feel of his hands and the boat dropping out from under me, dragging me under and the water sliding over my face, filling my chest. I try to loose myself again in sounds of the sea slipping by and the wind in the rigging as I hang onto the edge of a scream by my fingernails. I feel it shredding at me as it seeks release, but it's all I have to hang onto.
Until John comes forward and, wrapping a protective arm around my shoulder, takes me below and back to the aft cabin. It is typically reserved for the Captain and Chief Scientist, but since this isn't a research trip and John is a friend of the Captain, he's enjoyed the privilege of a larger bunk. It's not quite twin size but enough for two. He practically pushes me up into it before he follows. Shielding me from the world, his arms gently capturing and folding me against him as he strokes my hair and murmurs random words of comfort as the dam of hysteria breaks and I shake and weep my fears out against his chest.
At the moment of flying apart the weight of reality in his solid, elemental being anchors me in infinite tenderness.
And then I sleep, deep and dreamless.
When I wake in the late morning light streaming through the skylight into the cabin, John is gone. As drained as I am, there is still some frustration there. Yes, I am that rare female that is "a morning person." I roll over and bury my nose in his pillow, hiding in his rich, earthy scent for a few moments more before I face the world. I run my fingers over his gear stowed away with precise efficiency. A picture of Alex, much younger than she is now but recognizable by her soft brown eyes and snub nose, is stuck into the edging of one of the two cubbyholes. Boots and foul weather gear on top of what must be his backpack in one, clothes and shaving kit in another. Nothing else but a copy of "Kim" from the ship's library that is tucked underneath the small leather bag. I pull it out and open it to the dog eared page:
Glancing back in the twilight at the huge ridges behind him and the faint, thin line of the road whereby they had come, he would lay out, with a hillman's generous breadth of vision, fresh marches for the morrow; or, halting in the neck of some uplifted pass that gave on Spiti and Kulu, would stretch out his hands yearningly towards the high snows of the horizon. In the dawns they flared windy-red above stark blue, as Kedarnath and Badrinath—kings of that wilderness—took the first sunlight. All day long they lay like molten silver under the sun, and at evening put on their jewels again.
He's hasn't talked about books much, but I can see where the story of the lone boy's adventures of street trickery and political intrigues in the rich landscape of Kipling's India would appeal to him. Perhaps he read it as a boy and is re-reading it now. Probably. I wonder what he thought of the Lama then, the compassionate and gentle father figure he did not have but seems to have tried to be for Alex.
I realize there's a lot to John I don't know, a rich but subtle texture you have to keep your eyes sharp to see.
It must be morning, but my wristwatch is in my bunk. I wander out into the main cabin.
In the middle of lunch.
In a t-shirt and underwear.
Oh gawd. We are "that couple" now. And we haven't even had sex.
But I wave back gamely as everyone just says or waves "Hi", accept Alex who looks away red faced as her father gets up to walk me back to my bunk.
"Greg said I can fill in this watch for you if you need more rest."
"I'm fine." I hug him tightly, my face in his neck as my hands slide over the strong muscles in his back. "You've been waiting for this haven't you?"
"You said it might take a week." He holds me close while his thumb traces my cheek.
"Thank you."
I have energy to sail the ship, but not much else making me quiet and shockingly docile at first, something that I know worries John even more. I try to reassure him that I am just tired and he tries not to fret, but the concern is still obvious in his eyes and he still approaches me as if afraid I'm about to break even further.
One can either thank the Gods or curse them for politics.
A day later over lunch, John tries to shy out of the debate that is obviously about to ensue by shaking his head and waving it off with the "This is above my pay grade" excuse.
I don't let him. "I agree that Saddam was a horrible tyrant and that the C.I.A. was part of the reason he rose to power and therefore he was to a certain extent our problem to fix, and the arbitrary line you all drew creating Iraq sort of made it partly your problem to fix, but look how much damage removing him did."
"You can't blame the military because Rumsfeld and that lot couldn't find their own arses with both hands and a map," he snaps.
"O.K. Whoa, stop. Let me make this perfectly clear: I am not blaming the military for anything in this discussion. We talking about the politicos only. You know I know that the military is there to protect their nation and protect people. This discussion is strictly about the political decisions of how the military is used and neither your country nor mine can keep being World Cops."
There a moment while he pauses, considering me quizzically, and then leaning forward again he steps in carefully. "I don't see why not. When we have the power to correct a situation, to save people from murder and abuse, don't we have a duty to?"
"But can we promise that to everyone? Look how hap-hazzardly it is applied. While we were fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Liberia begged for the U.S. help and we were "over extended" until public opinion embarrassed them into sending in a few Marines."
"You said you supported the invasion of Afghanistan."
"I did. We gave them thirty days to hand over bin Laden and they didn't. I understand the cultural imperative they were acting on, but the Taliban had to realize they were dealing with a much bigger playing field than just their culture and they should have handed the son of a bitch over."
"They couldn't get their hands on him even if they wanted to."
"Yeah, but they didn't want to."
"So use of military force is alright if you have a personal interest."
Ouch. "Well, isn't that how it is really applied? Only instead of it being the interests of the common citizenry, it's the interest of governments and their supporting corporate lobbyists? That's where it gets morally fuzzy, when "protecting the nation" becomes "protecting the nation's interests." Again, all respect to the military, we just dealing with the politics here and let's face it, the Banana Republics are still alive and well. They just go through the IMF and World Bank first. Most of the time."
"I'm not sure the Kurds would see it that way."
"Wouldn't they? Again, I'm not arguing that Saddam was a murderous bastard, but can you really give freedom to someone or is it something that has to be earned? Both your nation's history and mine are dramatically different, but they both prove the same point. It has to be earned. For us we seized it, for you all it was a long incremental progression towards democracy. It's not like Simon de Montfort arrived and said, "Congratulations, you're a parliamentary democracy" and you were. You guys had to fight for it every step of the way, for hundreds of years. Wouldn't the Middle East be more stable if we just got our sticky fingers out of their sovereign rights and let them figure it out for themselves? If the Iraqis had made the move to get rid of him as a people? Or three peoples as the case may be."
"And while we're sitting on our arses waiting for your social movement, what happens the people on the ground? You're alright with the Taliban shoving women into burquas and encouraging honor killings just for the sake of political stability so long as they don't bother you lot?"
"Of course I'm not o.k. with it, but you can't enforce a new cultural morality from the outside. The only way to do that would be to make Afghanistan the 51st state and even if we did, we don't have the manpower to police it so these things never happened. They have to reach gender equality on their own if it is to be accepted, for good, by the greater Afghan society."
"Don't you think if the Kurds in Iraq or Muslims in Bosnia or the Jews in 1930's Germany could have gained equality on their own they would have? The States had a war to free the slaves in the South, right?"
"One of the two big reasons, yes, but they still couldn't force the South to accept them as equals. Instead we ended up with 80 years of Jim Crow laws until the African Americans themselves stepped forward as a culture to take control of their social and political destiny."
"But if the States hadn't had that war, they would not have been free to march on Washington in 1963 would they? I have had to look people in the eye who's children, mother, fathers, have "disappeared", kids in the face that the only question they care about is who's territory is their flat in this week. Kids so blinded by what they live with day in and day out, the only thing they think they can do is join whatever group of unscrupulous bastards is willing to use 14 year-olds as cannon fodder. So I don't see that it is such a bad thing for some of us to come out from behind the newspaper, or our books, and do something about it. Maybe we can't make it perfect, but we can sure as hell give those in need a hand up."
What do you say to someone who has stared it in the face? Seeing no answer is forthcoming, John all but throws his coffee cup at the wash station and barely keeps from stomping as he goes up on deck.
