the long war of no reason

I read recently of the five-year anniversary of the war in Iraq. That surprised me, because I remember being in Wal-Mart when I worked there, and watching the invasion on the teevee. Within a couple of days, we had Desert Storm T-shirts, and sold out immediately. Gas mileage entered my worldview, as gas climbed to $1.50 per gallon for the full-service (rural county) fill-up, and my very old and big car got 7 miles to the gallon. That was 17 years ago, half my life exactly, our government's robot soldiers (funded by all our good middle-class tax dollars) killing citizens of this little desert nation, formerly the Fertile Crescent, possible home of the Garden of Eden, as ordered by the original King George, the slightly smarter elder one.

Bill Clinton doesn't get let off the hook either. The sanctions imposed and held in place during his ridiculous reign killed about a million Iraqi citizens, disproportionately children. Horrible.

People who have come back from serving in Iraq over the last 17 years are scarred, much like the veterans of the last dumb war of no reason in Viet Nam. Tim McVeigh could tell you all about it, if he were still alive. So could all the other people who have lived with mental illness, homelessness, and diminished physical and mental abilities. One in every four homeless people in my town is a veteran. I forget the stats for what percentage of veterans become homeless, but it is quite a lot.

W can be held responsible for his actions, fabricating a war for no reason, except to create democracy for our oil that is currently under Iraq soil. Not for long. But giving money to Halliburton to run a war for us hasn't worked out all too well. More graft than ever, more bribes, more scandals, more ridiculous behavior and lost tax money. I saw an estimate of $2 trillion spent for the Iraq war, for the current mess of affairs. More than our mis-spent taxes, there's more torture and death for Iraqis, more disease, scars, orphans (35% of Iraqi children are orphans). It goes on, and what next president is going to order any order and get our interests elsewhere? None.

When will enough be enough? What brought on the end of the Viet Nam war? Nixon? Wow, we can't even find someone as nasty as Nixon to elect to end this useless war? I don't know what to do, other than talking to people about it. Of course, that is mostly places like here, where there is a willing ear. Also, on the bus, and poor people of this town get it. They know there is nothing to gain, except the loss of a family member who needed a job, and found one in the service.

Sad, and nothing to do but grieve and sympathize.

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On the other hand, happy easter! We are celebrating the holiday named for the Teutonic goddess Eostre, woo hoo, and no plastic grass in sight. We made a happy easter banner, and filled it with budding trees, robins, bunnies, spring flowers, sunshine, rain, and kids flying kites--what spring means to us. I asked my daughter what she knew of, of Easter, and she replied that she knew it had something to do with Jesus. But since we just celebrate the spring worshiping context, why does Jesus need to be a part of it? We saw the first robin today.

sharqi