Interesting article on Zarqawi
Jun. 14th, 2006 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marlowe1The Short Violent Life
I always wonder about these biographies of mass murderers and my reaction to them. I usually find that I'm most disturbed by their initial killings - the times when they kidnapped someone or shot a co-conspirator. The mass murder might just be too big to contemplate, but the little one-on-one murders tend to disturb me most of all. Like with the AUM cult in Japan and how they murdered witnesses and prosecuting attorneys and followers breaking away as opposed to the mass murder with the nerve gas. Or the Charles Manson cult where they first killed off a few people that were getting too close and killed a guy because he would open up his house to them and let them stay, but he wouldn't join them (more accurately him and his large inheritance would not join them.)
Even Hitler's execution of the brown shirts and his murder of the newspaper reporters at the early part of his chancellorship can give me bigger nightmares than the Holocaust. Maybe it's because in all cases, there is a feeling that someone is trying to stand up to an unstoppable force and that they have a chance to stop them in their tracks - only they find themselves tied up and dead in a ditch somewhere. Or it's just the personal angle. No, I think it might be the individual trying to stand up to something that will turn out too big for anyone to really handle without bloodshed.
I always wonder about these biographies of mass murderers and my reaction to them. I usually find that I'm most disturbed by their initial killings - the times when they kidnapped someone or shot a co-conspirator. The mass murder might just be too big to contemplate, but the little one-on-one murders tend to disturb me most of all. Like with the AUM cult in Japan and how they murdered witnesses and prosecuting attorneys and followers breaking away as opposed to the mass murder with the nerve gas. Or the Charles Manson cult where they first killed off a few people that were getting too close and killed a guy because he would open up his house to them and let them stay, but he wouldn't join them (more accurately him and his large inheritance would not join them.)
Even Hitler's execution of the brown shirts and his murder of the newspaper reporters at the early part of his chancellorship can give me bigger nightmares than the Holocaust. Maybe it's because in all cases, there is a feeling that someone is trying to stand up to an unstoppable force and that they have a chance to stop them in their tracks - only they find themselves tied up and dead in a ditch somewhere. Or it's just the personal angle. No, I think it might be the individual trying to stand up to something that will turn out too big for anyone to really handle without bloodshed.
