War

(Edwin Starr, 1969)

The other night my dad was voicing his amazement at the way Keith Olberman ripped into George Bush on his MSNBC program "Countdown." I'm not why he was being ripped, but let's face it, GW gives everyone plenty of opportunity. Before I go any further let me state that while I don't necessarily admire the manner in which the President has performed during his tenure in the White House, I highly respect the office and think that anyone faced with the state of the world as we know it would have a tough time. However . . .

Ron and I watched "Countdown" tonight and I was reminded, again, why I shy away from the news. It's so dang frustrating, depressing, enraging . . . Call me Pollyanna or an ostrich with my head in the sand. The problems are SO overwhelming and ridiculously complicated. There are many things that I think this country desperately needs to survive another millennium. For example: an insurance overhaul, a fair immigration policy, the abolishment (or at least a HUGE reduction/revamping) of the welfare system - I could go on for days. We also need to learn how to be nice to each other. I'm not talking about tolerance. I'm saying the Golden Rule. As cliche as it sounds, do what Jesus would do. Working towards that would help solve the other problems and we could all join in unison, "I'd Like to Teach the World To Sing." Some of you might debunk my call for the return to morality (or the song) as the answer. But . . . it would create a clearer picture of right and wrong and better choices would be made. There are way too many shades of gray in our world's palette.

Olberman says that of the 18 benchmarks the Iraqi government should have reached by now, NONE of them has been accomplished. We've been there how many years? Spent how many billions of dollars? Cost how many thousands of lives? If the Iraqis haven't managed to cross one thing off their "to do" list by now, I don't think it's going to happen. We could occupy Iraq until the apocalypse (which could be SO much sooner than we think) and I'm not sure much progress would be made. (My mom used to make "to do" lists for us when we were kids and we couldn't do anything else until everything was done. The last thing on every list was "Be nice to your mother." Now there's a concept.)

Because I've just spent the better part of my summer reading 950+ pages about HST I now consider myself an expert in foreign affairs. Never mind it's the foreign affairs of over fifty years ago. There are many, many details that we, the average Joe and Jane, don't know, and quite frankly, would be scared witless if we did know. Who knows? The armed forces may be on the verge of making some startling new discovery. Like they found a weapon of mass destruction and it turned out to be Lindsay Lohan's personal credo.

War, unfortunately, has been practiced since the beginning of the world. They almost always are fought in the name of freedom. But I'm wondering if Iraq is ready to be free. They've been in such chaos for so long that it may be impossible to ever fully grasp that concept. I once heard a story about circus elephants that died in a fire, even after their trainers had unchained them so they could move to safety. They were so used to being tethered that they couldn't act to save their lives. Maybe if the trainers had stayed with them to guide them they might have lived, but, as a result, the trainers might have died. I think we're the trainers. And we still can't get the elephants to take one step.