At Odds With My Inner Hippie

For most of my young adult and now middle age life, I've been a peaceful person.  I abhor the thought of fighting and sending our men and women into war, especially to places where I'm not sure a difference can be made.  September 11th changed how I feel about this subject.  Watching those towers fall to the ground--knowing human beings were in them-- made me long for retribution and an end to this threat.  While I did not agree with deploying troops to Iraq, I never had a problem with sending them into Afghanistan to hunt down the terrorists responsible for 9-11 and subsequent atrocities committed in other countries.

Though I'm not so sure we'll ever find the criminals responsible, or if we do that it'll make a difference, I'm still committed to our attempts to try.  After what happened in Pakistan this weekend, I don't see how we can ignore that the taliban and al-qaeda are a continuing threat to world peace.  The world would be foolish to ignore that their goal is to gain control of nuclear weapons.

Last night, instead of watching television full of useless programming, I watched the MSNBC special, The Tip of the Spear, and I was moved by the story.  The conditions our soldiers endure are so brutal that they're almost unimaginable.  From rugged terrain, double dealing tribal elders, mistakes of friendly fire, using themselves as bait for the taliban-- to the squalor of their base camp and brand new weapons that don't work, these men are on a heroic mission to change the future.  Our future.  At the very least, they deserve our support and they could probably use a few more men.

The side of my brain that abhors the violence wonders how we can ever win such a war.  History has repeatedly demonstrated that this is one area in the world that is lawless and uncivilized and this is something we can't change.  We have to think and act differently to change events.  While watching this, I couldn't help thinking about who is responsible for funding these terrorists.  I tried, but in all of the footage, I didn't see a gleaming high towered bank.  It's time to follow the money and cut off the head of the beast.  I have a feeling that without financial support, this is one hydra that would have a difficult time growing a new head.  While I know that in no small part, our country played a role in financing and training our own enemy when they were at war with Russia, someone, some country, some benefactor continues in this endeavor.  I wouldn't be surprised to find the culprits have hands dripping in oil and in my mind, they're as responsible for 9-11 as their citizens who hijacked the planes. I long for the day when we're not reliant on their oil and their market dries up.  

Though I'm sure the world would like to see an end to these wars we've gotten ourselves into (Nobel prize indeed), we ignore the continuing threat to our collective peril.

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