SUMMER READING, Part 2

And then there were none  By:  Agatha Christie

      The lady can tell a tale. It had been some time since my first reading, and this round hit me most profoundly. A little story with so much to say on right and wrong, responsibility, and living with your choices. Murder is often much more complicated than the 'simple' act of pulling the trigger.
     As planes are being shot down because of an uprising, supported by this faction, supplied by that power, with agreements signed by this man.  Did 'he' not ultimately shoot down that plane...and kill 298 people?
     Why are children (over 100 so far this year) dying and suffering with polio in Pakistan?  Is it due to the marauding Taliban followers who have killed 60 polio vaccination workers since the Pakistani Taliban banned polio vaccination in 2012? Does responsibility fall to the Taliban leaders who direct such tactics? Or does the fault lie with the genius in our own CIA who used a bogus hepatitis B vaccination campaign to collect information about the location of Osama bin Ladin?  I'm not against the process of espionage needed to find bin Ladin.  But, to connect those trying to protect and heal others from deadly diseases with our CIA surveillance in a culture that places little trust in our motives in the first place, thereby putting the lives of children, their parents, and healthcare workers at risk, is unconscionable!  So, who is killing and maiming those children and workers?  The ones who pulled the trigger?  The Taliban leaders?  Or did we do that?  Me and You?

10,000 Maniacs - Please Forgive Us

Lyrics:

"Mercy, mercy, why didn't we hear it?  Mercy, mercy, why didn't we read it, buried on the last page, of our morning papers?

The plan was drafted, drafted in secret.  Gunboats met the red tide.  Driven to the rum trade for the army, that they created.  But, the bullets were bought by us, it was dollars that paid them

Please forgive us, we don't know what was done.  Please forgive us, we don't know what was done in our name.

There'll be more trials like this, in mercenary hey days.  When they're so apt to wrap themselves up in the stripes and stars, and find that they are able to call themselves heroes, and to justify murder by their fighters for freedom.

Please forgive us, we don't know what was done.  Please forgive us, we didn't know.  Could you ever forgive us? I don't know, how you could.  I know this is no consolation.  Could you ever believe that we didn't know?

Please forgive us, we didn't know.  I wouldn't blame you if you never could.  Please forgive us.  And you never will."

To all the questions posed, I fear Dame Agatha would answer, "Yes! All of you." - c