30 Stories in 30 Days #4 – “An Eye for an Eye”

An Eye for an Eye

“It’s outright murder!”

“It’s war!”

The show host just sat back and let the two guests yell at each other over the phone.

“Nuking Tamark won’t bring back the tens of thousands who died in Miami this morning or help the thousands more still trapped in the rubble.”

“But those responsible for the tragedy this morning need to be shown that we will fight back.”

“By killing civilians who had nothing to do with this morning?”

“The President doesn’t want civilian casualties, which is why he gave them a two hour warning; far more than the civilians of Miami received.”

“Oh, yes, because we all know that people in Tamark – in the center of an oppressive regime – will get the message that we’re going to nuke them and there will be an orderly evacuation of the almost million population.  All that will happen is that the leaders will leave and the only people we will murder will be innocent civilians.”

“The President is under intense international pressure to increase the time frame so that the civilians will be able to leave.  But the problem is if we give them until … next week, the leaders will have plenty of time to gather up all their looted valuables and leave.”

“So it’s more important to deprive these thugs of their sports cars than to save innocent, civilian lives?”

“In an ideal world, civilians would never be hurt, but we don’t live in an ideal world.”

“And that makes it all right for us to join in the senseless slaughter of-”

The host interrupted with, “I’m sorry, but I need to break in here.  We’ve just received reports that an ICBM has been launched from North Dakota.  The flight time for an ICBM is just over half-an-hour, and it’s been … an hour-and-a-half since the President announced we would retaliate.”

The host and guests then fell into a silence.