Dreamscapes

Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms


Last night I dreamt I was on a strange search-and-destroy mission (I have never been in real combat), don't know where exactly (some city, in that surreal way a place exists in dreams), but I was wearing a combat uniform including OTV, carrying a rifle, safety lever off. I was inside a building and went slowly into a shadowy, messy room where I saw the Dear Leader of a country cowering in a corner. He could not tell if I was male or female, and I was so tired and so afraid, taking deep, silent breaths. I approached him and put the tip of the barrel of my rifle right under his chin, poking his neck. He could not see my eyes but I looked into his and he was afraid too. I believe he thought I would kill him and I believe I knew that I could. What I did, though, was scream at him, "Say you're a war criminal! Say it! SAY IT!" All the while I was poking his neck with my rifle. Then he said, "I am a war criminal". I grabbed him by his shirt and jerked him up. Without another word spoken by either of us, I pushed him out of the room with my rifle, then out of the building, to where some of the others were. Every step out of the building I hated him intensely. We took him as a prisoner and I no longer paid him any attention. I woke up at that point absolutely terrified... He said he was a war criminal because I told him to say it, he feared that if he didn't I would kill him. I would not have. And he lived because I knew there would be a tomorrow when the object of my hate did not sit cringing before me and I would no longer legitmately be able to say to myself, it's either him or me.
2700 US deaths in Iraq today, more than 45.000 Iraqis. And who will be the last person tortured for a mistake?