This is the Time
I was in trouble – no doubt about that. He was older, bigger and stronger. It was a time for action.
We lived next door to one another and were cousins. We had gotten into an argument about something of tremendous importance at that age, time and place and I was about to lose a fight.
How did it end? I came out day dry-eyed, bruise-free and he went home crying.
Fortunately for me, he was on his side of the fence and I was on mine. As he climbed the fence to make good on his threat, I saw a stick lying in the yard on my side of the fence. I was saved by quick thinking, quick reactions and a solid blow -- only one blow -- timed and struck while he was half over the fence.
This memory raised its ugly head yesterday after I read on another blog about the wisdom of striking the first blow.
Unlike the current situation, I was in imminent and clear danger. My action wasn’t based on damned lies about weapons of mass destruction that inspectors knew didn’t exist. My action didn’t result in a prolonged occupation in which over 2,900 hundred Americans have died. My action didn’t result in the deaths of 49,000-54,000 Iraqis. My action didn’t cause the deaths of 126 UK soldiers and 121 soldiers from other countries -- and journalists and contractors. My action didn't result in building the world's most expensive embassy in his yard.
Yes, there are vast differences between the two attacks but, that is to be expected because I wasn’t trying to build an empire.
This is the time for action.
This is the time for honesty.
This is the time for for soul searching and questioning.
What can I do personally to help heal the lives of people who suffered under a dictator and are suffering due to religious criminals and domination by a super-power?
We lived next door to one another and were cousins. We had gotten into an argument about something of tremendous importance at that age, time and place and I was about to lose a fight.
How did it end? I came out day dry-eyed, bruise-free and he went home crying.
Fortunately for me, he was on his side of the fence and I was on mine. As he climbed the fence to make good on his threat, I saw a stick lying in the yard on my side of the fence. I was saved by quick thinking, quick reactions and a solid blow -- only one blow -- timed and struck while he was half over the fence.
This memory raised its ugly head yesterday after I read on another blog about the wisdom of striking the first blow.
Unlike the current situation, I was in imminent and clear danger. My action wasn’t based on damned lies about weapons of mass destruction that inspectors knew didn’t exist. My action didn’t result in a prolonged occupation in which over 2,900 hundred Americans have died. My action didn’t result in the deaths of 49,000-54,000 Iraqis. My action didn’t cause the deaths of 126 UK soldiers and 121 soldiers from other countries -- and journalists and contractors. My action didn't result in building the world's most expensive embassy in his yard.
Yes, there are vast differences between the two attacks but, that is to be expected because I wasn’t trying to build an empire.
This is the time for action.
This is the time for honesty.
This is the time for for soul searching and questioning.
What can I do personally to help heal the lives of people who suffered under a dictator and are suffering due to religious criminals and domination by a super-power?
posted by Paul at 8:32 AM
3 Comments:
Right to the heart of it all! Damned good job!
We start by abandoning our arogance and quit interfering in other people's business, even when they have a big oil field under their feet......
Good post, Paul. We try to get beyond the conventional wisdom by informing ourselves about the long term truth of the situation.
I'm plowing through a book by Fouad Ajami, a teacher at Johns Hopkins U. called The Foreigner's Gift. The man seems to have a sympathetic interest in the problems of all the parties concerned in our terrible war.
We Americans are so abysmally ignorant of that land, and all foreign lands in fact.
I'm encouraged by the fact that our three sons have traveled significantly in foreign lands; they already know 10 times more than my generation did.
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