Apologies for the slow-posting on KOW lately. For myself the excuse is that I’ve been concentrating on a paper which needs to be finished asap. But two blog-tactic stories caught my eye this morning that I’d like to share. The first is the amazing Mr Gary Brooks Faulkner,
An American construction worker has been detained in the mountains of Pakistan after authorities there found him carrying a sword, pistol and night-vision goggles on a solo mission to hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden.
Not pleased with the efforts since 911 of the United States and its allies to capture Bin Laden Faulker, 50 years old, suffering from kidney disease requiring regular dialysis, struck out on his own. Now most people will think he is crazy. His brother insists,
“He’s as normal as you and I,” Scott Faulkner said. “He’s just very passionate, and, as a Christian, he felt, when Osama mocked this country after 9/11, and it didn’t feel like the military was doing enough, it became his passion, his mission, to track down Osama, and kill him, or bring him back alive.”
Personally, I think he’s a throwback to an earlier age when people were just, I don’t know, tougher, more intrepid, more bad ass– like the real-life figures in Peter Hopkirk’s great books. Respect.
On the other hand we have this story from the Daily Mail Spot the Difference about some as yet unknown person airbrushing the cigar from an iconic photo of Winston Churchill which is now rather embarrassingly hanging over the front entrance of the Britain at War Experience in Southeast London.
Of course this air-brushing of history reeks of Stalinism (see this brilliant book The Commissar Vanishes: Falsification of Photographs and Art in the Soviet Union). But the really depressing is how typical this is of 21st century vigilantism. Whatever you may conclude of Gary Faulkner’s mental state as he set out on his one-man war on terror you’ve got to admire the fact that he put his neck on the line (literally, in the area he was patrolling a Polish engineer was decapitated by Pakistani Taliban last year). That’s old school. In the second instance some unknown busybody vandalizes history in the pursuit of their own private war on smoking. Pathetic.
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It’s that time of year when great piles of marking cloud my otherwise sunny life… back in blogging action soon…
Meanwhile, speaking of WW2 era airbrushing: http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/commissar_vanishes/
I feel your pain-just finished mine. It seems the legal implications of private military contractors on the battlefield is the topic du jour this term for my class of aspiring international lawyers.
Amazingly–I mean after all they ARE the (very) best and brightest our nation has to offer, or so they are repeatedly told by our Dean, I learned (for the first time) that our CIA is actually an agency within our Department of Interior!
A sword? Was he planning to challenge Bin Laden to a duel?
Then again, I suppose that could’ve been as effective as everything we’ve tried to date.
Yes. A katana, apparently. I have a mental image of Chris Farley from Beverly Hills Ninja.
Speaking of movies (and/or fame), can I be the first to say that when the Pakistanis let this guy out of jail and he returns to the USA he is going to get rich. A book, a screenplay, celebrity endorsements… I suggest that he hook up with Jessica Lynch to do the lucrative motivational speaker thing. Cha ching!
What a splendid idea… We get Tarantino to write the script and direct – as a multi-quel to “Kill Bill” and “Inglourious Basterds”, and we finally get to see the decapitation of Bin Laden – at the hands of Faulkner after a 20 minute sword fight in the snow on top of the White Mountains, (with a soundtrack by Santana).
Takes care of that little problem.
I might be able to respect his intent, but frankly it was a dumb thing to do. Even worse, he might encourage other private citizens to try to do the same.
However I won’t assume he’s mentally ill, you’ll find the world filled with people who made obviously foolish decisions and yet are considered sane. Of course, considering that I haven’t had a chance to have a decent* psychiatrist interview him for several months I can’t say that he isn’t sane, but that this isn’t necessarily an indicator of a lack of sanity.
*Decent as in competent and not inclined to misrepresent the facts towards where the most money is.
I recommend having a look at the post on Heresy Corner about the Churchill cigar fiasco. It’s an interesting read.
That is interesting, thom. Irony piled on irony. The world is a weird place.
It is good though that KOW offers a refuge for those few of us who are not weird and who see the world with the clarity afforded by the collective omniscience of those who inhabit (or lurk) in this hallowed forum. ;-)
Truth is stranger than fiction.
Re Mr Faulkner –
While the exploit is an entertaining read, does it really actually differ from franchised terrorists taking shots at the west? There’s more discrimination in the selection of the target than the underpants bomber, but about the same as the Toronto group that wanted to behead Stephen Harper. Further, if it’s established that there is no difference, then it could make for an interesting trial and incarceration.