GROUND ZER0, New York, N.Y.--Dec. 28 &27, 2003 -- Mother Nature delivers Terrorism with a cruel indifference.   Humans deliver it with cruel difference.

      On the one hand, Mother Nature is indiscriminate in her acts of Terrorism.   She has no particular political, social or religious agenda.   She will heave and belch and swipe her hand across the land without regard to who stands in her way.
       The Beast of Terror, however, attempts to isolate its victims, to place them in his crosshairs in hopes the Last Man Standing will be his troops, his Centurions of Fear, Intimidation and Complacency.  But, we are all in danger of becoming Indiscriminate Terrorists.  We all are in danger of becoming personal Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) when it comes to parenting our children, and serving as examples to our Children's Children's Children.

      The town of Bam in Iran is the latest example of Mother Nature's Indiscriminate Terrorism.    With a population of 80,000, the 2,000-year-old community lays in waste from an earthquake last Friday that so far has claimed some 25,000 of its occupants.   Up to 40,000 may be in the final body count when all the counting of death is done.
       The total number of Iranians who died in the quake equal half of the total American deaths recorded in the Vietnam War.  If the possible total of 40,000 deaths comes, Mother Nature's Terrorism will, in one day,  nearly equal all the combat deaths of Americans in Vietnam.
        What is the difference between Mother Nature's Indiscriminate Terrorism and that effected by humans?
        In legal terms, a criminal act is one that involves mens rea, evil intent.   Basically, it means that people should be punished only when they are morally blameworthy.  
        Mother Nature seems to get a pass when it comes to Indiscriminate Terrorism.   The reason, it seems, is that she doesn't discriminate when her rage is unleashed upon humanity.   She will take all who stand in her way--the guilty and the innocent, the good and evil, the morally righteous and morally corrupt.  She doesn't isolate when she obliterates.  
         Human Terrorists, on the other hand, isolate.   They "target" their victims, seeking to inflict Fear, Intimidation and Complacency upon the mass of those they seek to rule by brute force.

        Idi Amin, the Uganda dictator who died this year, is attributed with killing upwards of 500,000 in his terror-filled reign.  Some claim he was far worse than Saddam Hussein in his use of Indiscriminate Terrorism.
         Modern human Terrorists, however, are playing with Mother Nature's tools of mass destruction.   In the past, they used knives, bullets and bombs, each requiring a target and an "enemy" to deliver deadly retribution upon for violating their "moral" sense of power.   Humans employ Fear, Intimidation and Complacency to sustain their "throne," to make others kneel in tribute to the threat they pose.
         But now, the mix between the indiscriminate power of Mother Nature and discriminate power of a human Terrorist is dangerously entwined.    The use of Weapons of Mass Destruction puts the indiscriminate power of Mother Nature into the hands of discriminate Terrorism.  
        Whether nuclear or biological, unleashing such weapons now falls into the purview of Mother Nature Terrorism.   All, the "good" and "bad," the "moral" and "immoral," the "righteous" and the "infidel" all become targets, fodder for the cannons of indiscriminate Terrorism.  

        Libya's leader, Muammar Qaddafi, recently admitted his nation was on the brink of developing nuclear weapons.   His arsenals, now open to inspection, include biochemical weapons.
       Other nations clutch their development of WMD to their breasts, as Mother Nature cleaves her earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and her viruses and diseases to her chest.  North Korea is fighting the prying eyes of the world seeking to peek into the Unholy Grail of its WMD goblet.
       Then there is the threats of former Russian scientists who developed many different countermeasures to American biochemical technology who might have sold their wares to the highest bidder when the Soviet Union collapsed.  It is thought vials of dangerous toxins were ferried off to those who would use them without compunction on a world they seek to rule through Fear, Intimidation and Complacency.
        We should all be aware of the power of Mother Nature to "wipe out" all who toy with her indiscriminate power.    A virus designed to kill millions can be carried about in a tiny vial, unleashed and spread through the 6 billion human race as fast as a sneeze can eject it from one person to another.    What recently occurred in Bam, where bulldozers shoved the bodies of the dead into mass graves, can be replicated around the world should Indiscriminate Terrorism make a major mistake and try to control the unpredictable.
        No one wants to think much about the true dangers of Indiscriminate Terrorism.  It is far too odious a thought.    We are all powerless over its nature, for when and if an epidemic of toxins race through humanity, we will be ill prepared to deal with its devastation, just as Bam was ill-prepared to handle the deaths of up to half of its citizens.
       The message delivered by the presence of Indiscriminate Terrorism has value, however.  It reminds us that we might harm our children thoughtlessly by infecting them with a sense of Fear, Intimidation and Complacency we are not even aware of.   The parent who snaps at his or her child:  "I'm too busy, don't bother me now," may be issuing upon the child a virus of Fear, Intimidation and Complacency, just as potentially mortal to the child's emotional health as a deadly bacteria might impact his or her immune system.   

        Indiscriminate Child Terrorism is common when it is not checked.   So often parents who are busy trying to manage and juggle their own lives, forget about the fragility of a child's feelings.    Such parents have no intent to harm a child, but the actions of the parent nevertheless impact the child's well being.   Children who think they are not loved, or cared for by their parents, or appreciated, are legion.
       In modern civilizations, psychiatrists' chairs and couches are filled with patients exposing their wounds obtained as children.  They are dressed in adult form, yet vomit out their pain of their inner child not being loved, of being abused, of being a tool for a parent to achieve vicariously what the parent could not accomplish personally.
      They are trying to heal Indiscriminate Terrorism, often delivered to them without mens rea, sans evil intent.  But, the damage is biochemical.   It passes on to future generations by clogging up the emotional arteries, hardening them, often creating mirrors of behavior that pass the virus of Indiscriminate Terrorism onto the next generation.

        There is an antidote.   That is the Pledge of Vigilance.  It is, in a sense, a biosuit that protects a parent from passing on the Virus of Indiscriminate Terrorism to the children.  It makes a parent or loved one aware of the dangers of the Beast of Terror, and his nefarious attempt to infect any and all in his path, regardless of their moral base, their religious or ethnic preferences, their social or economic status.
        History proves that the ability to Terrorize a child can exist among the richest and poorest, from the most socially elite to the untouchables, from the most to least educated.   The "civilized" and "uncivilized" haven't progressed when child abuse exists both in the United States as well as Iraq.  When a child takes a gun and goes to a school and kills the innocent and then themselves, or when highly educated and trusted priests abuse children, or when a parent snaps at a child and shouts:  "Shut Up!," the progress of human behavior above that of primordial ooze seems far distant.
        Today, we see the wrath of Mother Nature and are repulsed by the deaths of the innocent as exampled in Bam, Iran.  But what about the countless infections created daily upon the children of the earth by negligent parenting?   
        If we all examine the Beast of Terror's motives, we will find that he seeks to destroy us from within.   He seeks to use the viruses of Fear, Intimidation and Complacency to attack our immune systems, to weaken us and our self worth so that we cower and grovel, or, become Idi Amins.

        We can attack Indiscriminate Terrorism at its source.  We can do what Libya has done and open our nation's secret vaults to inspection.  We can let the world look into our viscera and expose the hidden Beast of Terror.
        America attacked Saddam Hussein on the grounds that nation harbored WMD, and to stop their proliferation.   It was a giant step toward opening the vaults of all the doors of all the nations who might be trying to compete with Mother Nature's ability to deliver Indiscriminate Terrorism.
        However, the true value of the thrust today to rid the world of WMD ends up on our individual doorsteps.  It requires each of us to look for the Indiscriminate Terrorism within ourselves and to cap it, destroy it before it releases itself virulently and feeds on our children's immune systems, turning them into carriers and Indiscriminate Terrorists of their own ilk.

       The Pledge of Vigilance is an antidote.  Taking it and applying it daily to the upbringing of our children, and to unclogging our own thoughts from Fear, Intimidation and Complacency, offers us all hope.
        It reminds us that Fear can be trumped by Courage, and Intimidation can be banished by Conviction, and Complacency can be extricated by Right Actions that benefit the Children's Children's Children.
       We should all cry for the deaths of the people of Bam.  But, we should also recognize them as Sentinels of Vigilance, as reminders that we need to recognize our own Indiscriminate Terrorism and neutralize it, just as Libya has opened its vaults to the Sentinels of Vigilance and allowed weapons inspectors to defuse the dangers of its Beast of Terror.
        Taking the Pledge of Vigilance is our way of defusing our WMD so that we no longer become the potential Parents of Terror.  

Dec. 26--Battling The Mad Cow Disease of Terrorism

©2001 - 2004, VigilanceVoice.com, All rights reserved -  a ((HYYPE)) design

The Pledge Of Vigilance