lenny unencumbered

If it’s natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how?

–Joan Baez, singer-songwriter, activist

As I continue to write and rewrite my mini magnum opus, I have been reading widely and watching a number of YouTube videos, some just for respite from the heavy research related to the sticky subject I’m wading into.

Over the weekend, I pulled one out of my Watch Later folder that I saved last month but hadn’t got around to viewing yet. The video is about an investigation titled We Investigated The Board Of Peace. The Corruption We Found Will Shock You, from the channel More Perfect Union.

The title is self-explanatory, but I think it’s important to identify the channel and what they represent more closely before we continue. This is the description from their Home page:

More Perfect Union is an Emmy-winning, nonprofit newsroom whose mission is to build power for working people. Here’s what that means: We report on the real struggles and challenges of the working class from a working-class perspective. We attempt to connect those problems to potential solutions. We report on the abuses and wrongdoing of corporate power. And we seek to hold accountable the ultra-rich who have too much power over America’s political and economic systems.

The Board of Peace (sic) is supposedly a “U.S.-led international organisation initiated by Donald Trump to oversee post-war governance, reconstruction, and security in the Gaza Strip following the October 2025 ceasefire.

Trump is the chairman for life.

That fact alone should already raise alarms. Worse, however, is the fact that the under-siege Palestinians whom we are led to believe are the reason why this body was constituted are significantly and completely excluded from any say in the execution of any future governance, rebuilding and security in Gaza.

Meanwhile, you might be surprised to learn that I was not entirely interested in the video’s revelations of corruption. I had already known instinctively, the second that the formation of the body was announced, that it was yet another racket conjured up to enrich the Trump family and their minions.

What infuriated me more was the interview [starting at 7:56] that the host and producer, Salwa Shameem, conducted with Morgan Lerette and an employee of a shady company known as Blackwater. Lerette identifies himself as a military contractor, but that is just a useful euphemism for a mercenary or hired gun. Blackwater styles itself as a Security Company, but that is also a comfortable lie, as they specialise in death and destruction, invariably of innocent men, women and children who usually sport a Brown complexion.

Immediately after identifying himself, Lerette wasted no time in earning my complete and utter contempt. I’d like to say hatred, but I try very hard to avoid going there. These were his introductory words:

I was enlisted in the Air Force, and then I worked for Blackwater in Iraq for 18 months in 2004, 2005. The former contractors aren’t big fans of me, I’ll tell you that.

But at the end of the day, Blackwater really gave me the opportunity to one, make a crap ton of money. That was always number one for me…

Then he uttered what was one of the most shocking things I’ve ever heard from a human being (I call him that grudgingly):

… And two, go and get that that war adventure that I had been training for and been wanting, you know, as a military member for so long.

Killing human beings is just a war adventure for him. This is a grown man, not a five-year-old who’s just been handed a toy gun. His adventure is other people’s misery.

But wait! It gets worse.

When questioned about the atrocities conducted by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (sic), another completely bogus company employed to distribute food to starving Palestinians under siege in Gaza, his conceit evolved into downright inhumanity:

You’re taking people that are military veterans and you’re putting them into a combat zone… it is going to be an absolute fiasco.

This is the problem with holding private military contractors accountable is, how do you define the jurisdiction that actually governs them?

It’s not the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it’s not the local laws. It really is this legal gray area that continues to be exploited.

It’s literally the guy that was standing there and thought he was making the right decision.

When Salwa asked him if he meant the civilians on the ground, Morgan replied:

I mean, from a contracting point of view, I don’t care about that.

Innocent people being killed are not his problem. It doesn’t bother him. He’s just there for the military adventure and the paycheck.

Morgan Lerette is probably just one example of many men and women who join the armed forces because they enjoy killing other people. Patriotism is a convenient pretext.

Elsewhere, a disturbing trend was first identified during the Bosnian War in 1992-1995. It became known as Sniper Tourism or Sniper Safaris. The grotesque scheme involves wealthy degenerates who pay to snipe at or kill innocent civilians in war zones. Investigations like this one from Italy are still ongoing.

Then there are the many instances of men from countries around the world who volunteer to serve as soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). They supposedly cannot resist the opportunity to kill Palestinians because it’s as easy as shooting fish in a barrel for these cowards.

There are actual recruitment agencies for so-called Lone Soldiers in Israel, such as the Mahal Program, Olim Enlistment, Lone Soldier Centre, and support programs such as Nefesh B’Nefesh. Thus far, I’m only aware of my own country, South Africa, which intends to prosecute these reprobates.

We live in a truly sick, sick world and sick is winning handsomely.