Frankly, I held little hope that the soldiers that were kidnapped last Friday would be found alive; too many kidnapping victims have been murdered to hold out any hope for that, but my heart is breaking for the soldiers families.
In spite of the political turmoil, there is still rousing support for our troops. That is what was sorely lacking during the Vietnam conflict. I am no fan of the 60s or 70s. To me it is a bitter pill. The memory of people shouting hatred at our troops. It was a sad day in the life of the United States.
I suppose that I should fess up to being duped by my President and the "intelligence" used to launch this war...Against the wishes of many countries. Nevertheless, Saddam Hussein has committed horrific crimes against his countrymen. I still believe that the people of Iraq will be better off living a life without a tyrant as the leader of their country.
I do not know if this war was necessary. Perhaps that will never be known, but I do believe that we took down a heathen. How many times do we sit idle as people are murdered? How often does it happen in our big cities?
When Katrina all but wiped New Orleans from the face of our country, it became evident that we are not prepared to take care of our own. God knows that homelessness and hunger are problems here-in our neighborhoods. Your next door neighbor could be going to bed hungry tonight.
Yet, we keep our gaze directed to Darfur and the problems in the Middle East. We know that tyranny is not only unjust, but inhuman. Perhaps the greatest lesson that we could have learned after 9/11 was that we are not prepared. We aren't.
Before we help anyone else, we need to help ourselves. As long as hunger, homelessness, disease and desperation take lives in the United States, we are just as guilty as the leadership that inflicts these things on their own people.
Our government doesn't take our homes and crops from us; nor does our government steal our riches or assassinate us on the streets, but we are killing each other and causing each other to suffer. We the residents of the richest country in the world. We have so much. Yet people suffer here just like in poorer countries.
Perhaps we need to turn our gaze inward. Maybe it is time to concentrate on the little wars that erupt every night in our major cities. We need to hold a huge therapy session for our government-help them recognize that we need to help ourselves before we can truly help anyone else. Self-nurturing isn't selfishness, it is necessary.
Renior's Playground
- Playground In My Mind
- I love oceans and mountains. Most any body of water will do, but hills do not make up for mountains. My favorite range is the Grand Teton.
Suicide Prevention
Silence is a killer
1 comment:
I remember when all the talk of war started. I knew over 6 months before they started even talking about WMD's that we were going to war. The dead givaway was how the reasons for war kept changing every few weeks. It was a search for a justification the American public would swallow. And I never believed we did it for the people of Iraq and to free them from a tyrant. There are plenty of far worse tyrants and we even support some of those.
I fully agree that we shold be looking more inwardly than outwardly. Not to say we should take Pat Buchanan's advice and isolate ourselves from the world, but with so many things at home that need to be done, toppling a two bit dictator that was no real threat to the US is a waste of valuable resources, both physical and emotional.
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