GROUND ZER0, New York, N.Y.--July 24, 2003-- Don't turn your back on the Beast of Terror.  He might just shoot you.  Not once.  But over and over.  And do it right smack in New York City Hall.
     Yesterday afternoon, in New York City Council Chambers, two men entered the high security facility that has served as the core of New York government for nearly 200 years.   By all appearances they were friendly when they slipped past the metal detectors, ushered around them rather than through them because one was a New York City Councilman.

     Rank has its privileges.  But in this case, the privilege was deadly.
     Minutes later, both men left City Hall on stretchers.  One was dead, the other mortally wounded. 
     America is geared for foreign attacks by Terrorists seeking to vent their revenge and anger upon our ideology, to fracture the symbols of security and power represented by the world's most powerful economic, military and democratic nation.  
     New York City was not expecting the Terrorist attack from within its own ranks.  It didn't expect one citizen killing another in the council chambers located just a few blocks from Ground Zero, the site of the Nine Eleven attack that ushered in our Great War On Terrorism.
      But, the surprise attack serves as a horrifying example that the Beast of Terror lies within, not only without, our nation.
     As a survivor of Nine Eleven, I look upon the intense security imposed on New York public offices as a reminder of Vigilance--a reminder that Al Queda and other Terrorist-bent factions are still plotting to deface the security of our nation.
     I slip, sometimes, and forget the great enemies of Vigilance are ourselves, and that the most frightening Beast of Terror roils inside our marrow, seething and hissing, eager to express his primal lust in both bold and nefarious ways against all who stand in his way.
     The Beast of Terror ranges from the false non-sexucal security of a cleric's cloth to the gun-toting "friend" of a city councilman.

    Forty-one year-old James E. Davis, a councilman from Brooklyn, entered City Hall yesterday with 31-year-old Othniel Askew.   Because Davis was a councilman, he was passed around the metal detectors, a privilege unfortunately offered to high-ranking politicians.   Davis ushered his compatriot around the detectors.  
     Davis, a former cop, was carrying a weapon.  So was Askew.
     According to the New York Times, Askew was a political opponent of Davis.   He was preparing to run against Davis for the coveted council seat.    Based on police reports, the two had repeatedly clashed.  Askew, apparently, filed a complaint with the FBI the day before, alleging that Councilman Davis was trying to drive him away from the political race by threatening to release personal damaging information about him (i.e. that he was gay) and by offering to buy his support with a job in Davis' camp.
       Councilman Davis' staff reported that Askew had come to the Brooklyn office and asked if he could attend the City Council meeting with Davis.   Davis invited him to join him.  Thus, the two men entered the building together as allies.
        A 21-year-old eye witness told the Times that as Davis and Askew were leaving the public-viewing balcony just as the Council was opening the session. Askew pulled out his gun and shot Davis repeatedly in the back before a stunned and shocked gallery of citizens viewing the Council.
       A policeman below in the Council chambers drew and shot up at Askew, mortally wounding him.  Askew would die later at New York University Hospital.
       A herd of young children in the gallery were rushed to safety in Mayor Bloomberg's office, where the New York City mayor was working.
       No one will ever really know why one man vying for high political office in one of the world's most famous cities would shoot his opponent in the back.  It was a virtual act of suicide.  There can be no claim to sanity for such actions, as there isn't in most violent murders.  The only good thing is he didn't strap on his chest rows of dynamite.
       It is clear, however, that the Beast of Terror blinded the shooter with rage of such an order as to make his act so incredulous it seems beyond belief.  
       The event slapped my face, sobering me back into the reality of Terrorism.

       The insidious nature of Terrorism is woven into a web of Complacency.  The strands glitter seductively, forming silvery simplistic designs that blind you to their true brutal nature.  You forget they are sticky traps, geared to hold you their prisoner as the spider trundles down the web to eat you.  You begin to believe-- if you are not practicing Vigilance--that the Beast of Terror cannot twist "civilized" humans so easily into crazed beasts.  You start to give the Beast too much slack.  You start to trust priests and politicians, to believe what you hear on the news, and to forget Complacency is Terrorism's great perfume.
        The New York City law enforcement team got Complacent.  when they allowed the "higher ups" to pass around the metal detectors at City Hall.   They forgot that "important people" and their "guests" have Beasts of Terrors inside them also.   They forgot the best of us can become the worst of us.
         Of course, who would think a priest would molest children when he is alleged to be the shepherd of the flock?    Or, who would think a nice, friendly family who all appeared happy on the outside would end up murdered by the hands of a mother gone crazed? 
         Who would think leaders of huge corporations such as Enron would pilfer the pockets of the old and  young, then run off with millions at the expense of thousands?
         We all should know better than to think certain "types" of people--because of elevated social, political, religious or economic status--stand above the Law of the Beast.   None of us is exempt since we are all human, all of us subject to character defects that can turn us from instant "saints" into instant "sinners."  Ask Jessie Jackson.

      In Vietnam, one of the first combat deaths I witnessed occurred when a young, 19-year-old Marine I was with on my first combat patrols took a farmer prisoner.  He made him kneel in front of him as he searched him, then told him to "di-di," to run.   The Vietnamese was an innocuous character, old and wrinkled, hands leathered from planting rice all day.   He was barefoot, in black pajamas, his teeth rotted and blackened from chewing Beetle Nut.  He was hardly a threat.
        But as the man ran wildly toward the rice paddy, my fellow Marine raised his M-14 and shot him repeatedly in the back.   I was stunned.  I turned to him and said:  "My God, why did you kill him?"   I will never forget the rage in the young man's eyes.  Each orb roared with the fires of Hell, lasering through me as though I were the enemy as he spewed:  "When you've seen as many of your buddies killed by these fuck'n gooks as I have, you'll kill 'em all too!"
        Then he slithered away from me, hunkered down, hunting more humans.
        The Beast, however, doesn't just shoot people in the backs with guns either in Vietnam or New York City Council Champbers.
        I know a close friend, a beautiful woman from a high-ranking family.  These family members are looked upon with respect and admiration as pillars of their society.   Her father, a great statue in the society, had two roles.   During the day, he was the model citizen, the man you looked up to.   Each night, while the girl's mother took her evening bath, the model citizen sexually molested his daughter from ages seven to fourteen.  Beasts take on many forms.

      Then there are mothers and fathers who ignore their children, or beat them, or tell them they are "stupid" or "ugly."   And others who buy their children all the "things" they want because they don't have time to love them.  These commercial parents turn their children into shells who compare everyone's outsides to theirs, never looking or knowing how to look "within" for the riches of human nature.  They go on to Yale to become the CEO of Enron, or a politician, or a lawyer.
        One doesn't have to take a gun and shoot another in the back.
        Talking down a person behind his or her back is a form of character assassination.   The tongue becomes the bullet: it shoots its target with deadly purpose.
        Whatever the reason for the killing in New York City Chambers, there are far more acts of Terror being conducted outside them.
        As a Sentinel of Vigilance, I need to remember that wounding and killing people can be done by our actions or lack of them against others.   When we fall victim to Terrorism's Fear, Intimidation and Complacency, we open the door to human brutality not unlike that unleashed yesterday by one person shooting another in the back.
       We run headlines on such acts such as the killing of Councilman Davis as though they were the "most criminal" of all, but forget to run headlines that such acts of violence are only signs of a deeper, more troubled system of feeding Terrorism before it erupts.  The Beast grew in Askew.  It evolved within, as it will within all of us unless we stunt its growth.

     Askew did not kill Davis for any one reason.   In a lifetime of Terror-Thoughts, Askew learned that violence was a solution, a payback, a retribution act.  He wasn't Vigilant, for were he, he would have countered his Fears with Courage, neutralized his Intimidations with Convictions, and rather than fall Complacent to the urge of murderous violence, taken Right Actions that would benefit the Children's Children's Children.  And those actions would not include shooting an "enemy" in the back. 
       But Askew should not be the focus of attention. The parent who beats his or her kids because his or her parents beat him or her, is just as guilty of a similar Terror crime.  Such a parent is passing down the Legacy of Terrorism.
        Because the father never hugged the son, or talked to him soul-to-soul, is not justification for the next generation of fatherhood to deny showing love to his children.   The Beast, however, enjoys the Complacency of Vigilance.

       The Beast hopes we do not take a Pledge of Vigilance when we become parents or   politicians or the CEO of a major corporation.    He's glad the Pledge of Vigilance is not a requirement for priesthood, motherhood, fatherhood, boss-hood.   He feels safe as long as people think they are smarter than he, more "civilized," more "intelligent," more "moral."
        The real metal detectors in life--those things that will ultimately thwart Terrorism--are Courage, Conviction and Right Actions in behalf of the Children's Children's Children.    These Principles of Vigilance  will keep us from shooting others in the back, from becoming victims of the Triad of Terrorism.
         Put on your metal detector today.
         Expose the Beast of Terror.
         Take the Pledge of Vigilance.

July 23--Dead Sons of the Beast of Terror

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