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Partial transcript of the “trial” of Josiah Warren. We’ll explore this in a later flashback issue.
“I call this tribunal to order. Will the defendant please stand?”
“Mr. Josiah Warren, you are brought before this panel on charges of aiding and abetting terrorism against Coalition forces in Afghanistan, providing illegal weapons such as rocket launchers and plastic explosives to radical groups, 159 counts of attempted murder, and 57 counts of murder in the first degree. Do you understand the charges being brought against you?”
“I understand.”
“How do you plead?”
“…does it matter?”
“Sorry?”
“I said, does it matter? How I plead?”
“It affects the nature of how your defense will be carried out, Mr. Warren. I assume your counselor went over this with you? If you need a few minutes of consultation with your representative to clarify your defense, I will declare a brief recess.”
“…guilty”
“Could you repeat that Mr. Warren?”
“Guilty.”
“Would you like to make an opening statement, Mr. Warren?”
“May I be frank?”
“As long as you remain calm, certainly.”
“I never terrorized anyone. I don’t hate freedom, or believe in God or autocracy. All I did was try to protect those I loved from violence, regardless of their uniform or national origin. I brought my friends guns and taught them to use them. I watched them grow strong and independent. I saw fear pass out of them. I saw women who were once afraid to speak at all in front of men shout down fundementalists in the streets. I saw a woman blow apart a man’s head when he threatened her children at a school. I saw progress, equality, cooperation blooming. We drove out the Taliban from the Khyber Pass, right by Pakistan. We never bothered your soldiers, or the Karzaian troops. You attacked us. Whether you made a mistake, or were trying to stamp out our influence in the area, I don’t know. You walked past the warning signs with weapons aimed. You rolled in tanks and APC’s and mortars. You ordered us to stand down. To abandon the fortress that we poured six months of tedious labor into, with the Taliban harassing us the whole time. You would have stolen our arms and left us to the mercy of the jehadis. He said no. We sent a man out with a proposal, that we protect the area, preserve human rights. You manhandled him, almost shot him, accused him of being a suicide bomber. You tore the agreement up, and moved in. I pushed the button. 57 of your men died in an instant.”
“We knew you would never try to understand what you asked of us, the insult of it, the condescension. You asked us to give our loyalty to men who slaughtered our people under the Taliban. You put war criminals on the same scale as Milosevic into positions of power. You never spoke out as your aid went into the pockets of drug lords and slaughterers. You thrust one wicked regime out of power in an ocean of blood, and have left Afghanistan to drown in it. You care about nothing but your own interests. Killing your pawns gave me joy, and I would do it a thousand times over.”
“Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.”
The rest of the trial passed in a blur.
I didn’t care. Their would be no mercy. Any man who sheds American blood is damned, even if it was in defense of liberty and freedom.
“Cold. They always keep it cold. Fifty six degrees in here, at least eighty outside. They spend a fortune keeping us miserable.”
“You go through life, always being told to trust the people in power, the elected officials in all their glittering finery, and maybe you think to yourself that they always seem to be the ones who benefit most from what they do, and that they never follow through with what they promise, but you have a life, you’re busy getting a degree and falling in love and holding a job, so you just shrug it off. Things will right themselves, this is a democracy.”
“But one day, years later, you’re doing something good, pure, even holy. You’re protecting those you love, or trying to live apart from society. And they, the men you always figured deep down were probably alright, they lock you in a hole, and they forget why you’re there, what you did. You’re just another hairy, ugly face. Just another terrorist…”
“I call this tribunal to order. Will the defendant please stand?”
“Mr. Josiah Warren, you are brought before this panel on charges of aiding and abetting terrorism against Coalition forces in Afghanistan, providing illegal weapons such as rocket launchers and plastic explosives to radical groups, 159 counts of attempted murder, and 57 counts of murder in the first degree. Do you understand the charges being brought against you?”
“I understand.”
“How do you plead?”
“…does it matter?”
“Sorry?”
“I said, does it matter? How I plead?”
“It affects the nature of how your defense will be carried out, Mr. Warren. I assume your counselor went over this with you? If you need a few minutes of consultation with your representative to clarify your defense, I will declare a brief recess.”
“…guilty”
“Could you repeat that Mr. Warren?”
“Guilty.”
“Would you like to make an opening statement, Mr. Warren?”
“May I be frank?”
“As long as you remain calm, certainly.”
“I never terrorized anyone. I don’t hate freedom, or believe in God or autocracy. All I did was try to protect those I loved from violence, regardless of their uniform or national origin. I brought my friends guns and taught them to use them. I watched them grow strong and independent. I saw fear pass out of them. I saw women who were once afraid to speak at all in front of men shout down fundementalists in the streets. I saw a woman blow apart a man’s head when he threatened her children at a school. I saw progress, equality, cooperation blooming. We drove out the Taliban from the Khyber Pass, right by Pakistan. We never bothered your soldiers, or the Karzaian troops. You attacked us. Whether you made a mistake, or were trying to stamp out our influence in the area, I don’t know. You walked past the warning signs with weapons aimed. You rolled in tanks and APC’s and mortars. You ordered us to stand down. To abandon the fortress that we poured six months of tedious labor into, with the Taliban harassing us the whole time. You would have stolen our arms and left us to the mercy of the jehadis. He said no. We sent a man out with a proposal, that we protect the area, preserve human rights. You manhandled him, almost shot him, accused him of being a suicide bomber. You tore the agreement up, and moved in. I pushed the button. 57 of your men died in an instant.”
“We knew you would never try to understand what you asked of us, the insult of it, the condescension. You asked us to give our loyalty to men who slaughtered our people under the Taliban. You put war criminals on the same scale as Milosevic into positions of power. You never spoke out as your aid went into the pockets of drug lords and slaughterers. You thrust one wicked regime out of power in an ocean of blood, and have left Afghanistan to drown in it. You care about nothing but your own interests. Killing your pawns gave me joy, and I would do it a thousand times over.”
“Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.”
The rest of the trial passed in a blur.
I didn’t care. Their would be no mercy. Any man who sheds American blood is damned, even if it was in defense of liberty and freedom.
“Cold. They always keep it cold. Fifty six degrees in here, at least eighty outside. They spend a fortune keeping us miserable.”
“You go through life, always being told to trust the people in power, the elected officials in all their glittering finery, and maybe you think to yourself that they always seem to be the ones who benefit most from what they do, and that they never follow through with what they promise, but you have a life, you’re busy getting a degree and falling in love and holding a job, so you just shrug it off. Things will right themselves, this is a democracy.”
“But one day, years later, you’re doing something good, pure, even holy. You’re protecting those you love, or trying to live apart from society. And they, the men you always figured deep down were probably alright, they lock you in a hole, and they forget why you’re there, what you did. You’re just another hairy, ugly face. Just another terrorist…”
