PESD

[Ivo Skoric]

What is pre-emptive self-defense (PESD)? It is when you shoot an 
unarmed man because you believed he could have a gun. It happens all 
the time in the U.S. of A. At some point during Giuliani's reign, 
NYPD shot a series of people in pre-emptive self-defense. One had a 
toy-gun. Another was pulling out a wallet with his ID -  the action 
which cops mistook for pulling out a gun, and sprayed him with 
bullets. All were colored and/or minorities. Officers were acquitted 
and vindicated, because statistically colored young males have high 
likelihood of being criminals, so what else could good officers 
think? 

Of course, that statistics is derived from the fact that there is 
higher likelihood for them to be thrown in prison for petty reasons, 
because of prejudice, and lack of information, and resources, that 
prevents them from obtaining solid legal help. So, the vicious circle 
is closed. Because they are forced to the existential brink by the 
system, they are nearly expected to commit crimes. Once they do, that 
confirms the assumption that they indeed are criminals. Then every 
young colored male is viewed as a criminal, unless proved innocent. 

Such forced statistics helps make things easy for police officers. 
However, pre-emptive self-defense in fact pre-empts the judicial 
process, preventing the opportunity for the victims to prove their 
possible innocence. Larger public largely does not care. They are 
victims of the forced statistics, too. And of the media that use it 
to drill the fear into their heads, make us all feel like potential 
victims of the aggressive predators on the loose, build a nation of 
timid in the supposed home of the brave, breed the support for the 
abuse of force in the name of pre-emptive self-defense. Derived from 
the uninformed fear, the PESD is the weapon of choice for self-
important cowards.

It is somewhat ironic that a man from Texas, where movies had long 
wanted us to believe that justice was dispensed under the PESD motto 
"shoot first, then ask questions", now brings the pre-emptive self-
defense to the global arena, making it an operative foreign policy of 
a country with the most powerful military on the planet. Muslim Arabs 
in the world now play the role of young colored males in the American 
society: they are all statistically potential suspects, and as such 
it is safer to shoot them first, let Allah sort them out. 

Their impoverished countries, ruled by despots that long enjoyed US 
financial and military support, proved to be as good a breeding 
ground for anger and despair, as the inner-city American ghettos are. 
The doctrine of PESD reveals the intrinsic belief of this US 
administration that there indeed are sound reasons for those people 
to hate the US. The PESD is rooted in that belief, and in the 
evangelic determination not to address the real causes of that hate. 
Instead, the PESD doctrine feeds of that hate, to foster hateful, 
prickly,  uncompassionate response of its own. 

The PESD advocates are convinced that there is no other way. Because 
they instinctively shut themselves off from thoughts and solutions, 
that may be inconsistent with their cherished gluttonous way of life, 
which they are intent on preserving at all costs, and which, for 
public consumption, they call freedom and liberty, depriving those 
words of their real, beautiful meaning.

ivo