I Still Have Some Naivete

   Lieutenant Trevor Greene, a Vancouverite serving in the Canadian Forces' CIMIC unit, was attacked yesterday as he sat talking with village leaders in a remote village northeast of Kandahar, Afghanistan. He sat bareheaded and unarmed to drink tea and discuss local needs with the elders through the aid of an interpreter. He was just asking if the village had a school when his assailant came forward. He came up behind Greene, shouted "Allahu Akbar" and then swung an axe downward at Greene's head. Then he just stood there. Canadian soldiers reacted immediately, pumping 14 shots into his body. When examined later, it was found that the corpse bore no identification.
   As the brave murderer stood there over his prone victim, he was probably picturing the voluptuous houris who are supposed to await him in paradise, to fuck him every night of eternity. He was giving no thought to anyone else. He didn't care about Greene, although he should have. He didn't care about the people of that village or any of the others to which Greene had paid a visit. He was thinking only with what he had between his legs, the closest he came to brains.
   Greene came to the military after being a journalist in Africa and Asia. He came with ideas of bringing aid to Afghanistan, through an independent aid organization that he wanted to establish after he left the forces. In the past week Greene had visited a dozen villages to take notes about what was needed in each one of them. His intent was to take that info back to friends in the Canadian west, people who he said were "on the same wavelength" as he was. He knew of millionaires in the oil business in Canada's west who wanted to "start an organization that can really get to the core needs of Afghanistan". (quotes from the March 5 article in the Toronto Daily Star) Greene wanted to "get the aid where it is needed". Instead, he lies now in a hospital bed in Germany, where a team of neurologists are assessing the brain damage he suffered in the attack. He did survive the attack. He is breathing on his own. But what level of ability he will return to is anyone's guess at the moment. In cutting down Greene, that village idiot may have cut down so much more than just one Canadian soldier. Not long before the attack, Greene had spoken to Star reporters who were there with his troop and tried to explain why he wanted to involve himself in the work to get humanitarian aid to the region. "I still have some naivete that hasn't been beaten out of me," he said.
   I wonder if there is any naivete left now. I wonder just how much brain function survived the axe-wielding murderer who pretended belief in God. I do not wonder about the divine reaction to the murderer's actions. I firmly believe that the Almighty, no matter what name any of us might invoke, is sickened by such actions. I believe s/he turns away in disgust when such an individual defiles their name by screaming it out in moments of senseless violence. I believe the pipe dream of a smiling houri is just that, nothing more. The almighty would not award such barbarism with anything other than a denial of the assailant's existence. If there is an Almighty waiting to greet the souls of the departed, I am sure s/he would hold the gates of paradise open jut long enough for the damned to feel the wind when the gates are slammed shut in their face.
    Perhaps that is the moment when beautiful maidens actually do appear. Perhaps they peek out and giggle while the wind from the slamming gates wafts the idiot's soul away to nothingness.