Torture By the Invisible Hand of the State: A Letter of Apology from a US Marine To Iraqi Citizens

By:  Josiano Castata

Few times will any human being have to face the invisible hand of karma in a way as absolute as I did this past weekend in Las Vegas. I don’t know if I necessarily believe in the concept of Karma. I want to, though, because I see the people on top of society causing so much of the misery the plebes below are forced to endure and I wonder, Will they ever be forced to endure 1/10th of the suffering that they have caused others by their greed and sociopathic lust of power? However, the sad fact is that they will probably never endure a fraction of the suffering that they have caused others.

This past weekend I was out with some friends from, interestingly enough, the Freedom Fest, one of the largest conventions that actively nurtures the principles of freedom and non-aggression. Looking back at it this now I can see how this was ultimately what set me up for failure. You spend the whole day discussing non-initiation of force and the ever expanding tyrannical practices of the United States with some of the greatest minds in the freedom movement and you leave there thinking that rights exist within the state and that if you can just shake the slaves awake we can reclaim them.

The saddest thing for this former Marine to realize is that you have no rights guaranteed to you by the constitution. That it was simply a document written to appease the masses just long enough for the shackles to be clamped around their neck. In the same way that you train a horse by running it until it has no will to resist anymore, we have been propagandized into believing that the system was made for us if we could only get it back. It was all a lie.

This past weekend I was in an exclusive Vegas club. The gist of the story is, I was inquiring into Justin’s well being after he was escorted out of the club by 8 large individuals who were blocking him against a wall. This is understandable as my friend Justin is the about 5’8” and 150lbs. His very presence insights fear, in fact. Many times I have seen women shriek in horror as they grabbed their infants and ran in terror just at the sight of him. Instantly there were four guards with their hands on me. With my fresh philosophy in non-initiation of force I politely asked these brutes to not use force against me, as I had not initiated force in anyway against them. This quickly got Justin and I in a secluded room handcuffed to a bench for three hours. Non-initiation of force doesn’t work well against servants to the state apparently.

One of my captors actually ended up being a former Marine as well. He informed me that he was a Master Sergeant. I don’t think I will ever be able to explain nor forget the level of betrayal that I felt when I learned that this man, my captor, the one that could hold me for doing nothing wrong, for doing violence to no one could sit there and let me be held in chains against my will. I implored that he recognize his oath, the same oath that we had both taken: that we would protect the constitution, that we would give the most sacred thing that we possessed, our one singular and irreplaceable life, for the sustainment of that document which I used to hold in solemn reverence. He however put his head down in shame, presumably because he recognized that he was terrified more of losing his job than his honor.

After three hours of this bondage the official police showed up to legitimize the captivity that we had been forced to endure. At this point the whole mechanism of the state was to be rebuked by my sovereign mind. When the police showed up I witnessed them tell the casino security how to change their “official” report so that it would be more “admissible in court.”

I then learned that one of police officers was a former Marine. I asked him the same question about the oath that he swore to uphold. No response. These same individuals, the ones that I thought I shared a sacred bond with, that had been forged in the fire of the crucible as I had, that had been in the service together would’ve have looked me in the eye and said that there was no level of hell that they would not endure to ensure that I would not die alone and that my body would not be left on a foreign land; they were now even refusing to recognize that I was a human being and that by that very nature I had rights that were being violated.

I can go on, I can tell you about the guard at the detention center that told me if I didn’t follow his command he would “slam my body to the floor”. I can tell you about the clearly scientific torture techniques of the incarceration system. Justin already did that in his article. My purpose of this piece is to account for my sins as a vassal of the state.

Like the former Marines, the security guard and the police officer, that did nothing to stand up for my rights as a sovereign individual, I too did nothing when I was in Iraq to voice my objection to the inhumanity that was occurring all around me. I did nothing when we came across a whole company of Iraqi soldiers that were slain by U.S Military heavy machine guns. I did nothing when I saw a member of my platoon unbutton his trousers and proceed to piss on a dead Iraqi soldier.

I did nothing when we were in Baghdad in charge of processing “detainees” and the Marines would beat the Iraqi’s that they were “guarding”. Since I am making my confession I will even say that I felt a sense of righteousness when I heard these stories and I saw the frightened expressions on so many of these Iraqi men. After all, as so many of the sheep that have heard the stories of my captivity by the hands of the state have said, “You had to be doing something wrong or they wouldn’t have arrested you right”?

I am sorry that, when my supervisor dug a hole in the ground just so he could point to the detainees and then to it because he thought their fear was funny, I did nothing. It was my responsibility to stop this madness no matter where I was in the chain of command. I was there to stop the spread of terrorism and I became implicit in it. I failed in my sacred oath to the constitution.

To whatever Iraqis that happen to read this, if I was present when your rights as human beings were violated by the oppressive hand of state, all I can say is I am sorry. I failed as a human to stand up for you. I turned my eyes when you were imploring the infinite power of the universe to intervene and protect your rights. I know that you were wishing that there would be just one person that would stand up and say STOP, THIS IS MADNESS, THEY ARE HUMAN BEINGS GODDAMN IT!!!

I now know what evil I perpetrated against you because it was done to me. I know the despair that comes when your fellow human beings refuse to recognize you as one of their own and choose instead to treat you as animals. As for myself I promise that I will never be on the wrong side again. The State is what allows the injustices be perpetrated on others. It is the state that must end. It is the only way that humanity will ever be allowed to flourish on this beautiful earth. End the madness. End the State!