I can always tell when I'm being sucked inward by the weight of a thought or topic - inward within my own mind, my own thoughts - when I'm looking at things around me, but not seeing. When I'm walking through the day, but not living it. The past few days since I've learned about the execution of Saddam Hussein, that's exactly what I've been doing.
So since I've been in my outwardly shut-down, mulling-things-over mode, I know that this has had a great impact on me.
I just now have come to be able to write about it.
I'm not sure where this post will go. Just bear with me.
The news rocked me. More than I ever could have imagined it would. And for more reasons than I can fully wrap my mind around.
With the start of the New Year, we ended the deadliest month for American casualties for this year in Iraq. But the innocent who have died, I'm sure is above and beyond ours. Why do we not mourn for them? And I have to wonder what is in store for our troops & all of the citizens of Iraq now that Saddam has been hanged. More blood-shed? More torture? More hunger? More crying? More waiting & wondering?
And for what, exactly?
I can think so clearly about how desperate mothers must feel over there. Desperate to protect their babies from bombs & rubble & evacuation.
I've run through that scenario in my own mind. If something catastrophic were to happen outside of my door. Where I would take my babies to hide & be safe. To live. Breathe. Eat.
There are mothers living what I have the luxury of imagining. Half a world a way. But I feel them in their panic. Across the distance.
I so want a perfect world for my babies & for everyone.
I'm certain perfection doesn't exist.
Peace does, though.
So does humanity.
And humanitarianism.
I'm not even sure where I stand on Saddam. He obviously seemed like a bad, bad person. But I'm so confused by lies fed to me by my own government that I'm wondering who really is bad. I've entertained that fact that he didn't deserve what he got.
I can't help but feel like we are doing to Iraq, what we tried to do to the Communists for so long. I feel in my heart of hearts that we are now, The Iron Curtain.
It is so easy to be scared by things we know little of. We went into this war with a President - a country (including myself) who knows little of that culture, that religion. And here we are, pressing our government on this country. Without really getting to know what the greater good is for that country.
We haven't even figured it out here.
Like most of our war efforts, we are only there because we think we have something to gain.
I feel sick as I type this because I have no solution.
I have only thoughts. Gripes. Criticisms.
Pity.
Pity for my country. That I was brought up to believe was great.
But have now seen it for what it is. A big, callous, corporate, apathetic bully.
People like me are viewed as not being supportive of our troops. Of being un-American.
If me wanting our troops home to live, hugging their families, being mommies and daddies, sons and daughters and citizens, is unsupportive, than so be it. It is wrong for me to wish them home, I suppose.
And if being un-American means I care about the state of the world for the whole of humanity, than I'll say it loud and proud, I'm un-American.
I feel pity because I feel that it's going to get way worse for everyone before it gets any better. It's this somber, sick brick in the pit of my stomach.
What I do not have is apathy. But most of this country does. Maybe I am mistaken. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.
Our babies, our families, friends deserve a better world than what we are giving ourselves. Creating for everyone.
Americans are not the only ones who are deserving.
So since I've been in my outwardly shut-down, mulling-things-over mode, I know that this has had a great impact on me.
I just now have come to be able to write about it.
I'm not sure where this post will go. Just bear with me.
The news rocked me. More than I ever could have imagined it would. And for more reasons than I can fully wrap my mind around.
With the start of the New Year, we ended the deadliest month for American casualties for this year in Iraq. But the innocent who have died, I'm sure is above and beyond ours. Why do we not mourn for them? And I have to wonder what is in store for our troops & all of the citizens of Iraq now that Saddam has been hanged. More blood-shed? More torture? More hunger? More crying? More waiting & wondering?
And for what, exactly?
I can think so clearly about how desperate mothers must feel over there. Desperate to protect their babies from bombs & rubble & evacuation.
I've run through that scenario in my own mind. If something catastrophic were to happen outside of my door. Where I would take my babies to hide & be safe. To live. Breathe. Eat.
There are mothers living what I have the luxury of imagining. Half a world a way. But I feel them in their panic. Across the distance.
I so want a perfect world for my babies & for everyone.
I'm certain perfection doesn't exist.
Peace does, though.
So does humanity.
And humanitarianism.
I'm not even sure where I stand on Saddam. He obviously seemed like a bad, bad person. But I'm so confused by lies fed to me by my own government that I'm wondering who really is bad. I've entertained that fact that he didn't deserve what he got.
I can't help but feel like we are doing to Iraq, what we tried to do to the Communists for so long. I feel in my heart of hearts that we are now, The Iron Curtain.
It is so easy to be scared by things we know little of. We went into this war with a President - a country (including myself) who knows little of that culture, that religion. And here we are, pressing our government on this country. Without really getting to know what the greater good is for that country.
We haven't even figured it out here.
Like most of our war efforts, we are only there because we think we have something to gain.
I feel sick as I type this because I have no solution.
I have only thoughts. Gripes. Criticisms.
Pity.
Pity for my country. That I was brought up to believe was great.
But have now seen it for what it is. A big, callous, corporate, apathetic bully.
People like me are viewed as not being supportive of our troops. Of being un-American.
If me wanting our troops home to live, hugging their families, being mommies and daddies, sons and daughters and citizens, is unsupportive, than so be it. It is wrong for me to wish them home, I suppose.
And if being un-American means I care about the state of the world for the whole of humanity, than I'll say it loud and proud, I'm un-American.
I feel pity because I feel that it's going to get way worse for everyone before it gets any better. It's this somber, sick brick in the pit of my stomach.
What I do not have is apathy. But most of this country does. Maybe I am mistaken. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.
Our babies, our families, friends deserve a better world than what we are giving ourselves. Creating for everyone.
Americans are not the only ones who are deserving.
2 ripples in the pond:
What a wonderful post and I agree with you. It made me sick to hear of Saddam's hanging. I know that he did unimaginable things to people, caused the death or torture of many, many people but he was also a human. Just like the Iraqi people, all human, even the young men who blow themselves up, human and therefore more like us than different from us.
The differences we have with other races and cultures are just on the surface, underneath, we are all pretty much the same. We are want to be happy, to be loved, to be safe, to have a community that cares about us and our fate.
My daughter just woke up and I need to take care of her, but I did want to say more. Thank you for saying in public what you did.
oh honey,
i know. this is why my heart is permanently broken. i, too, have no words more often than not.
and thanks for your sweetness over my way. i know you are a deeply introspective person, and i have no expectations, ever.
xo
Post a Comment