drewkitty

GWOT VI - This Madness Has To Stop

I slowly came back to myself. Watching my friend Mo zipped into his body bag was part of it. We'd joked, more than once, that we'd need several body bags or a broom and wire brush for him. Bomb tech. Occupational hazard. But he'd disarmed his last device and he was all in one piece, except for all the bullet holes.

The screaming of the Xtian child soldier trainers as they were tortured to death also helped. It wasn't California doing it. It was the Refuge troops. They'd been taught all about the mechanics of tiring by the Xtian militias. They were getting their own back, one screaming burning running victim at a time.

Yet California soldiers were present and we weren't stopping it.

Never give an order you know won't be obeyed. If I tried to stop it, I probably couldn't. I also didn't want to.

The more important work was taking place on the other side of the school bus. Like a well oiled machine, the Californians and Refuge medics and a couple of Red Lion Helpers were sorting and triaging the children. Refugee children held as hostages. Xtian children who had been used as combatants. We didn't care. Save them all, treat them all, restrain them all. We'd already found two grenades.

A flare up of dust nearby as a Red Lion contract medical helicopter landed, under the muzzles of our guns. Red jumpsuited flight medics helped the line medics make the decision of who would fly and who would die. There were plenty of Xtians who would shoot it up just for practice, but I wouldn't stoop to using it for military purposes.

As ground ambulances arrived, they departed just as swiftly, fully loaded with drives of hours ahead of them. Some chance is better than none.

Covered in blood, cut from broken glass and the blade of a child I'd shot under his chin, the most pain I felt was from the recoil of the machine pistol savagely hammering my right wrist. I'd been a little busy. Shooting children. To save them.

The charges had been disarmed. A technical intelligence team, well trained by their now dead boss, were documenting them prior to disassembly. With his body still cooling, his people were doing their jobs. No higher accolade can a leader receive.

I could do no less.

###

To: UNNAPID Command, New York
From: Major Echo 18, Army of the Republic of California Expeditionary Forces

CC: [the usual]

Re: mandatory reporting of war crimes involving the use of child soldiers; mandatory reporting of genocide

It is my duty to inform UNNAPID and through it the UN Human Rights Commission, that on this date, militia forces aligned with the Xtian separatist movement made use of child soldiers between the ages of six and twelve to breach military obstacles, shield their forces from small arms fire and land mines, directly execute non-combatant men and women and children in violation of the Geneva Conventions, and to the point, assist in the kidnapping of innocent children who were later that day used as hostages and repeatedly threatened with execution.

There has been a certain hesitation in openly declaring that what the Xtian forces are doing in Iowa is a genocide. This triggers certain obligations and responsibilities of the United Nations and of the entire world, in the face of an atrocity on the same level as the Holocaust, as the Balkans War, as the Rwandan genocide.

"None dare call it genocide."

I call it genocide. I have seen too many bodies in piles. Our national aid society, Red Lion, has documented tens of thousands of killings of non combatant refugees in Iowa. More than a thousand took place in the last twenty four hours, and the actions of child soldiers were instrumental in making this latest mass killing possible.

I have therefore determined that it is inappropriate for the California forces deployed in the Iowa counter-genocide operations to recognize any Xtian separatist forces as lawful combatants.

As this is inconsistent with the obligations of UN peacekeeping forces in the field to obey international humanitarian law, I therefore withdraw California forces under my operational control from any further United Nations operational control or direction. Nor will we ask for any support, noting for the record that we have not received any support to date in any case.

The Commander, California Expeditionary Forces, provided in my orders the option for me to take this highly unusual step. Until and unless I receive orders to the contrary from my lawful chain of command, i.e. Commander - CEF, Commanding General CAR or GovCal, my operational intent is to destroy all irregular Xtian forces without compunction or mercy, as the most effective means of ending this genocide.

THIS INCLUDES DIRECT ATTACKS ON THEIR CHURCHES AND HOMES.

Only barbarians make war on children. Yet it is something worse than barbarism to make children into living weapons. Something that stinks of death camps and mass crematoriums and the pious, lying claim that "It will never happen again."

It is happening. It is happening here. It is happening now.

If making war on children is the only means left to California to stop this genocide, let the world call us barbarians.

But we are not barbarians who wrap ourselves in lying words and false promises while using the latest in technology and tactics to murder, not in a random or criminal fashion, but in a studied and determined and methodological manner - building factories of death in which child labor is employed.

Summary:

- Xtian forces are no longer recognized as lawful combatants.

- California forces under my control hoist the Jolly Roger, the black flag. We ask no quarter, we give no quarter.

- If this is mass war using children, I have no choice but to consider Xtian churches and schools nothing more than madrassas, barracks for child troops, and I shall smite them as the terror sites they are.

Given under my hand, this dark and bloody day

Midford, Iowa