Strange Dream

I usually don't remember dreams, even after they wake me in the night. But this one ... wow. Sometimes I will wake with poetry fully formed in my head, and have to get up to write it down, but I've never had a dream like this. And there was no going back to sleep afterwards, either. I had to get up and think.

So at 3:30AM in the morning I wake, fully lucid and dead calm, vividly remembering that I had just emptied the contents of a service revolver directly into...



Well, let me set the stage.

In my dream I am the President of the United States (wearing a custom-tailored brown/olive suit, which I must say looks pretty darn good on me). Yesterday I was informed that Osama Bin Laden and his second-in-command, Sheik Al-Zakawri (or whatever his name is, I forget - I'll just call him Big Al), have been taken alive in Pakistan, and are en route to the US under heavy guard. The general public does not know yet.

Immediately I call for the Cabinet to assemble, along with key leaders of Congress and the Supreme Court justices, whoever can be found (after all, it is summer break) and hustled to Washington in about 12 hours. The press is simply shut out, cold.

Roughly 8 hours later I am in an interrogation room with Osama and Big Al, with cameras rolling. We show them footage of the 9/11 attacks and ask through interpreters if they claim responsibility for the destruction and the deaths of innocent people. They do, proudly - at times launching into a diatribe against the Great Satan. After this, they are offered the opportunity to refresh and get presentable.

Four hours later, those invitees who could make it are hastily assembled in a room in the White House normally used for receptions. Chairs are arranged in a semi-circle facing a wall with a door. Two wide screen monitors are set up to face the group, and White House press corps cameras begin to record the proceedings.

I have the footage of 9/11 begin rolling on the monitors. And I address the group (giving this speech, which was fully formed in my head as I woke), like this:

"What is justice? Who is responsible for ensuring it? We hear cries for justice for the poor & oppressed, along with expectations that government should make it happen. We hear cries against leniency for violent criminals, expecting that the government should dispense justice on behalf of the innocent victims.

"The State bears responsibility for justice in this life; God bears it ... in the next. We do the best we can here and now at doing what's right and just, given our human limitations. And we ask God for forgiveness should our efforts be too weak, or too heavy-handed.

"I hear the words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount echo in my head - turn the other cheek, love your enemies, go the extra mile, do not seek vengeance. But to whom was He speaking? Heads of state? Military commanders? I think ... no. He spoke to individuals. Regular people with regular enemies and regular persecutors. That's the context of His remarks.

"What instruction did He give emperors, and generals in time of war? None. Other writers in the Bible spoke to those things: the King does not bear the sword for nothing; the King is both directed by God and subject to God's judgement. Ladies and Gentlemen, today we face the awful responsibility peculiar to state and military, of dispensing justice against criminals and combatants."

"Too often commanders sit in secure, distant offices and order young men and women to engage the enemy, resulting in death on all sides. But the commanders never engage the enemy directly. Judges sit behind a bench and pronounce sentence, but never help guards and prison staff carry it out, never see the effects on the criminal's family. Not today. Not this time.

(At this point I nodded to an aide, and in come Osama and Big Al, hands secured, but otherwise unfettered. They are seated against the wall, while the 9/11 footage keeps rolling. Then I nodded again, and the video switched to their confessions in the interrogation room. We all watched, an interpreter translating their rants.)

"I'm confident that nearly every one of you, and the vast majority of our fellow citizens, would have had no problems if news reports had stated definitively that these two Al Qaida leaders had been positively identified as killed by missile fire in an attack on their compound. In fact, I dare say that in parts of this country there would be rejoicing and a feeling that justice had been done, that we had just become a lot safer, having broken the back of Al Qaida.

"But here they sit, waiting on our actions today. What do we do in our role as the state and the military? Defer to the world court, or look to the UN for justice? Establish a war crimes tribunal? Hold them as enemy combatants without benefit of trial? Apply harsh interrogation techniques? What exactly is justice in wartime? What does it look like? Is it different on the battlefield than in the White House? And yet, didn't they bring the battlefield to New York City and Washington, DC? In a sense, we are sitting on the battlefield, here and now. We are engaging the enemy.

"Many of us in this room approach God through a Judeo-Christian framework. These men approach God through an Islamic framework. I have been taught to forgive others as I have been forgiven. And as an individual, I can, and I do. But as commander-in-chief of an army at war with these men? As head of state, charged with protecting law-abiding citizens?

(and here I turn to the prisoners and say, through the interpreter, "Say your prayers, as I will say mine.")

"God, you who forgave King David of so much bloodshed, forgive these men of their bloodshed...

...and me of mine."

I ask the military escort for his sidearm. Without hesitating, I fire POP! POP! POP! into Osama, and POP! POP! POP! into Big Al, each getting one in the head & two in the heart. Ten seconds total elapsed time. I return the sidearm, face the stunned group, and say:

"Let the record show that, on behalf of our innocent civilians killed on 9/11: justice was done today - in this life. And we pray that God will dispense both justice AND mercy in the next life - to all of us."



and then I woke up. And I immediately wanted to know what happened next, in the room, in the press, around the world. But I couldn't go back to it - I just couldn't.

I've been asking myself since then... how could I have thought this through so clearly in my sleep? Is this what I really believe? Is this my version of justice? Or just a crazy, crazy Harrison-Ford-Tom-Clancy-movie-drama dream? I'd like to just forget this whole thing. Ugh.