Mpeketoni

I hate to respond to tempers, hatred and open bias.

But I think it is important to respond to all this vitriol being poured out on social media about the Mpeketoni massacre. I am calling it a massacre because everybody doing it though I do not think it is the most accurate word to use.

People are hurting intensely as we very ably put our points across. Children have been orphaned and women widowed even as we vent our foolish hatred. Some have gone through life-destroying trauma even as we compete in shouting the loudest as we speak from our bunkers. Livelihoods have been destroyed, some never to be recovered as we seek to demonstrate that our hero who might be more foolish than a hyena is right.

But I also find it important to respond to all the spite being poured out on our armed forces for their inactivity. And I am not doing it just because some have been interdicted and are at the risk of being jailed. I think we have completely misunderstood what they represent.

Some years back I am sure I could have argued like most of you because I did not understand how they operate. But as I have got to understand the Bible and the way the spiritual world operates I now appreciate that the armed forces are completely different than the way corporations operate.

For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. (Matthew 8:9)

Simply speaking in the armed forces it is orders you are supposed to follow. No soldier originates orders.

I was told that the area not only has the police but also most of the other forces have large bases within a very short distance from there but they also didn’t do anything.

An OCS has orders that he can issue but they are very few. An OCPD has a little more orders but also not very many. I am sure the attack must have necessitated a very senior order but the senior officer involved may have been conveniently shielded from the right information he may have required to issue the right order.

I was with some wazees yesterday and mentioned this element in the attacks and one mentioned an event I think might give us perspective in this.

The old Nation House is directly opposite the Nairobi fire station yet it burnt down. The fire station does not require even a vehicle. They can hose from their premises yet they did nothing.

The problem was not the fire station or its staff and equipment. It was a problem with the authorization. There was one key authorizing officer who went missing, probably because he had a stake in the gutting or maybe because he was enjoying his hard earned retreat.

Again we easily remember Westgate when a right team came and secured the building. Then another right team entered and messed the whole operation because each team was following its orders from their boss. It is sad that one of them died in the process and that not through inefficiency or compromise. Their order regimen was muddled because there were two order sources.

I suspect that is what may have happened at Mpeketoni. The boss of the operation looked for a way of locking probably just one person from knowing about it enough to issue the all important order to deal with it and the result is all the heartache many have to go through. And that is very possible. I doubt the attackers could have spent such a long time causing so much death and destruction unless they were sure that the person responsible to issue the order was out of circulation more or less.

I have posted about terrorism recently and it might help you to read that blog post.

Those killers were simply hirelings. We should pray for the wrath of God to fall on the people who made those attacks possible. We should be praying for God to expose people who are extremely demonic posing as leaders as they derive their pleasure from seeing blood being spilt. Why don’t they or their own die? Why does God not also kill their children like He did with Jeroboam? Why does the Lord not make them experience the pain they cause others?

It is painful as a minister who deals with disadvantaged people to see a whole community being brought to its knees. I can’t imagine how children who watched the ‘operation’ will grow up.

Let us pray and comment in a way that is constructive and especially that does not add injury to pain.