The latest transmission from the Levant—that sun-baked theater where humanity goes to demonstrate its pathological inability to evolve—features the usual carnage with a sprinkle of modern irony. In the town of Al-Zahra, the Israeli military has once again demonstrated its 'surgical precision' by converting eleven humans into a collection of data points and damp rags. Among the tally were three journalists who were reportedly operating a drone of their own. It is a moment of high-tech recursion that would be poetic if it weren't so profoundly tedious: a military drone terminating civilian drones operated by people who were trying to document the first drone. It’s a closed loop of silicon and slaughter that serves no purpose other than to keep the manufacturers’ stock prices in a healthy upward trajectory.

Let us, for a moment, peel back the layers of this particular onion of misery. The Israeli Defense Forces, an organization that discusses 'collateral damage' with the clinical detachment of an actuary calculating insurance premiums for a condemned building, will undoubtedly release a statement. It will involve words like 'operational necessity,' 'terrorist infrastructure,' or perhaps the ever-reliable 'unfortunate proximity.' It is a linguistic shell game designed to convince the comfortably numb that killing eleven people, including those whose only weapon was a remote control and a lens, is a regrettable but necessary box to check on the way to a security utopia that never actually arrives. One wonders how many 'precision' strikes it takes to realize that the only thing being refined is the efficiency of the funeral industry.

Then we have the journalists. One must admire the sheer, unadulterated delusion required to put on a blue vest with 'PRESS' written across it, as if those five letters act as a magical force field against Hellfire missiles. In the current geopolitical climate, a press vest isn’t a shield; it’s a high-visibility bullseye for whatever bored technician is operating the joystick from a refrigerated trailer sixty miles away. These individuals were operating a drone near Al-Zahra, trying to capture the 'truth,' as if the truth hasn’t been screaming at us in high definition for decades. The truth is simple: if you are in the way of a state-sponsored tantrum, you cease to exist. Documenting the apocalypse while it’s actively deleting you is a special kind of masochism that I find both baffling and entirely indicative of the species' obsession with its own demise.

Naturally, the international response will follow the established liturgical calendar of outrage. The Left will emerge from their ivory towers and artisanal coffee shops to perform their ritualistic weeping. They will post infographics on Instagram, convinced that a well-designed font will somehow penetrate the armor of a Merkava tank. They treat these deaths as a personal affront to their sense of global justice, ignoring the fact that their 'activism' has the tactical impact of a wet paper towel. They don't want peace; they want the aesthetic of being on the 'right side of history' without the inconvenience of actually doing anything. It’s performative grief for a digital audience that has the attention span of a goldfish on amphetamines.

Across the aisle, the Right will begin their practiced gymnastics to explain why these eleven people—journalists included—were essentially asking for it. To the ghouls who treat state power as a substitute for a personality, any death is justifiable as long as it’s wrapped in the flag. They’ll imply the drone was carrying a dirty bomb, or that the journalists were secretly hamas-adjacent, or that the very act of being in a war zone is a confession of guilt. It’s a cynical, moronic worldview that views human life as a dispensable currency in a game of regional dominance. For them, empathy is a luxury they can’t afford, and intellect is a burden they’ve long since discarded.

And what of the eleven? They are now just a number to be tossed into the hopper of the 24-hour news cycle. In forty-eight hours, they will be replaced by another set of victims, another 'regrettable incident,' another explosion in another town with a name that Western audiences will mispronounce before forgetting entirely. We are trapped in a cycle of high-tech barbarism and low-IQ commentary. The drones will keep flying, the 'press' will keep dying, and the public will keep scrolling. It’s a magnificent display of collective failure. I’d say we should be ashamed, but that would imply we have the capacity for self-reflection—a trait that, much like the eleven people in Al-Zahra, seems to have been permanently neutralized.