Letter to the Shooters

When cowards flee from the battlefield

With their tails between their legs

They carry their war

To unarmed men and women;

They turn their weapons on

The undefended and the defenceless.

Do your battle-hardened soldiers

Prove their valour and their bravery

By aiming their sights, and emptying their clips

In the retreating backs of women

And at pleading, surrendered captives?

No matter how righteous your cause is,

Or how justified your convictions,

There is no God in heaven

Nor any sane person on earth

Who can spare a moment of sympathy

For the cause of such combatants;

Any moral authority, any wrongs you may have suffered

Cannot excuse your actions.

Your attempts at spreading Terror

Inspire instead a bold defiance

As an enraged nation grits its teeth

And swears to pursue justice -

Your attempts at dividing us

By spreading fear and suspicion

Serve instead to galvanise us

And unite us in a cause;

To hunt you down, you Coward,

You and those who sent you

To bring a swift and terrible justice

Upon you and your confederates.

 

The friend we’ve lost,

The sons and daughters you took

Are gone where we can’t follow.

But there is no hole in all the world

That can hide you from the shame,

The sure, inexorable justice

That their blood is crying out for.

So, salve your conscience with the pious utterings

That your leaders have brainwashed you into believing

Lay down your lives

In the unholiest form of war;

Receive, instead of the promised forty virgins

A thousand devils in Jahannam

To serve for an eternity

At Allah’s fiery displeasure…