The US Department of Defense has recently concluded its emergency internal election to find a worthy successor to the previous war crime scapegoat who unexpectedly died this year. The election was hastily called because there were no contingency plans in case the last scapegoat died, as no one at the Pentagon expected the US public to still remember the massacre that took place 56 years ago. Although finding a replacement for this role was of utmost importance, one can not help but wonder if it was worth it to dedicate so much time and a part of the US military’s shoestring $916 billion budget to the running of the elections, or perhaps the US public just needs to suck it up and forget that several hundred civilians, almost all women, children, and the elderly, were killed. I mean, it happened over half a century ago, big fucking deal. Regardless, the Pentagon decided to appease these overly sensitive and unpatriotic Americans.
The Pentagon has had a long history of using scapegoats to have its leaders not take responsibility for war crimes committed overseas. Since the last one was so effective, it’s natural that the Pentagon is pursuing this same strategy: although many members of the military, including senior officers, were found to be connected to the massacre in the original investigations, only one was convicted, and no one seemed to bat an eye.
There were many strong candidates, and it certainly wasn’t easy for members of the Pentagon to vote for who they felt was the best choice. One long-time frontrunner is a 5-year-old orphan from Kentucky. “Kentucky already has the highest rate of maltreated children, so we thought mistreating another, by imprisoning them, would go over well with the public”, said Hen-Rhea Kissingher, Director of War Crime Cover Ups at the US Department of Defense, who requested to be anonymous, “but we decided that the public wouldn’t readily accept the idea that a 5-year-old is responsible for the massacre of at least 347 civilians that took place 56 years ago. Maybe if the death toll were lower—around 200 at most—we’d be able to convince people.” Ultimately, the candidate who will soon be sworn in later this year is Jesús Krist. Jesús is the son of immigrant parents, born to a Slovenian father and Mexican mother, and owns a woodworking shop dedicated to teaching Jewish youths at his mosque in El Paso, Texas. “This scapegoat-elect is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: Jesús is Jewish, he’s a carpenter, and with a name like that? He’s the perfect person to die for our sins.”
One of Kissingher’s assistants later followed up with us in private to assure us that Jesús would only proverbially die for our sins and assured us they would make sure he would only have to serve at most 20 years imprisonment. It should be noted that, just as what happened with the previous scapegoat, Jesús’s sentence is likely to be reduced to 3 years of house arrest.
