Re: What a bummer..... -- Careless Page

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Date Posted: 18:05:38 09/15/01 Sat
Author: Richard
Subject: Re: What a bummer.....
In reply to: Zoa 's message, "Re: What a bummer....." on 08:15:59 09/03/01 Mon

Zoa, I got your email, but technical problems and a lack of time have kept me from answering anything on there, or even reading all of it. It's good to hear from you. I'm glad things are going well for you. Here's something I wrote on another page, that I thought I'd share with you. It's called "Mowing my Lawn for America."

Every Saturday I mow my lawn. I've never really done it for anyone in particular; it's just something that needed done. But this Saturday is different. I'm not mowing my lawn with thoughts of settling in to watch football tomorrow, as I would most Semptember Saturdays; I'm not mowing it as a prelude to just another work week on Monday; I'm doing it with a different mindset than I have ever had. War is a terrible thing. When we were an isolationist nation in the years leading to WWII, we were becoming a soft people, a lazy people, a decadant people. We were firmly entrenched in the notion that we had our own problems, and there wasn't a big, wide world out there. When we came together with a singular spirit, united in our resolve to stop Japan and Germany from growing a bizarre, hideous empire across this planet, we also came to cry for the struggles of our neighbors in France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia; our most distant neighbors in China, Russia, The Phillipines, and other Asian countries; to be inspired by the bravery of the Battle of Britain, and other equally heroic struggles, we became for a short time, HALF A WORLD united, and looking deep into the eyes and hearts of good, strong people across the globe.

We liked what we saw, and in the times since then, war has played out in new, and unconventional ways, that saw suspicion grow between us, and the other mechanized, "civilized" nations, and played out the acrimony that exists between conflicting political and philosophical viewpoints; in essence the very nature of war itself. These resulting conflicts were hard to define, and people within our own country often had a hard time uniting, due to a general lack of understanding of what we were fighting for.

To fight and die is no small thing. It always means some of our best and bravest young men returning to our shores in body bags, their grieving families often having a hard time finding enough pride in their son's bravery to fill the emptiness left by the tragedy of a young life's potential being unfulfilled, replaced only by a sad wind, and the whispers of a faint ghost.

In the past few years, we've been spared that sort of thing; an unprecedented lucky streak for America, finding our military conflicts being resolved through surgical airstrikes, seeing the loss of millions of enemy civilians as only blips on a video screen, not imagining the screaming, and the running in the streets, chased by fiery, explosive mechanized horror. Our soldiers have returned to us, for the most part, and managed to get some use out of those Army benefits, using their impressive skills to build a good life for themselves. Oh that the rest of the world would play by these rules, and deal with us from equal footing.

For the terrorist, there is no air support, no reinforcement troops, nothing to give him the slightest indication he might survive the battle, and live to fight another day. Imagine standing on the side of a mountain, waiting for attack helicopters, or even fighter jets to get close enough to you that you can hit them with a hand launched surface to air missile, fully aware that their firepower is enough to take out the very mountain you're standing on, at least a substantial portion of it. You'd have to be half-crazed with fear, knowing full well that even if you hit your target, your odds of survival aren't very good. The idea that there are terrorists willing to commit to suicide missions is a redundant thought: ALL acts of terrorism are suicide missions.

As I start the mower, and hear the reassuring growl, I walk through the thick grass with an exaggerated seriousness; as if strategically removing sections of lawn for all America to be proud of. This is an American lawn I'm mowing, with an American lawn mower. (Powered by Briggs & Stratton) There are no planes in ths sky today, in this quiet section of Indiana, and the land around me has never looked more beautiful. The grass I'm mowing is protecting some of the most fertile topsoil on Earth; the very essence of the physical place that is our country. The generations that have been, and will be nurtured from the corn you can grow out here alone is mind-boggling. The corn itself, of course, and all the cattle it will help feed, not to mention all the other food products we get from it. This is the land we have fought for throughout our history, and our right to keep it in the care entrusted to us by those generations who died for it.

I lovingly trim around each pine tree, apple tree, pear tree, walnut tree, bush, and flowerbed. Those are America's flowers growing there, proudly waving in the autumn breeze, and telling their own story of survival, in a summer filled with powerful storms, with nightmarish windspeeds. The snapdragons are almost three feet tall, with giant blooms that become as heavy as a broken heart when filled with rainwater. I've seen them bent all the way to the ground, and once in awhile, I've seen one break under the pressure, lost forever as a beautiful flower, now on its way to the bottom of my mulch pile, it's only remaining mission to provide nutrients for the very soil it came from.

The snapdragon knows no fear, resolved from the day of it's birth to a life of standing at attention at it's post; it has no thoughts of running or hiding from the enemy. It will survive, or it will die, but the inevitability of the second gives us cause to celebrate the first.

It's an American snapdragon, in the corner of an American yard, not 50 feet from an American flag, which has stood by through each storm, it too pelted by the rain, hail and wind, always challenged not to rip, or come loose and fly away. That flag has served as a reminder to all who make their way up the narrow dirt driveway, past the towering corn that they are safe here: This land is claimed by Americans. It also serves as a reminder that this is protected land. This is no place to invade the sanctity of another man's home; this is no place to be destructive or shady. Such efforts will be met with resistance, and swift, brutal force. Should you come in one of the windows or doors uninvited, sneaking around under the cover of night, you will find a butcher knife buried in the softness of your flesh, or perhaps a sharp blow from a tire iron to the back of your head, which you may or may not survive. You would be an invader, a hostile infiltrator of a place that is held by an American citizen, and as such, you would be justifiably dispatched.

I look around my freshly mowed yard, smoking a cigarette, and watching the kittens perform arial acrobatics that you would pay $5.00 a ticket to see. Even the mama cat is tearing up the side of the tree as if propelled by tiny rockets, at her age! These cats once lived in fear for their lives, hiding in the farthest regions of the barn, hoping no one would shoot them, or drown their kittens. But they now play wildly and freely within only yards of that American flag, their only fear coming from the lawn mower itself, which is now put away in my American back porch, which is the appropriate place to keep this noble machine, a device that maintains the order of the yard, helping it to be a place where American citizens can relax, listen to the birds, and reflect on their luck in being alive on such a beautiful, if a little chilly day.

The only vehicle likely to come down my driveway today is my wife's, as she comes home to her American husband, who will have cooked her a fantastic American dinner, as she so often does for him when he returns from his American job, a small part of the American economy. Saddam Hussein would like this place, and so would Osama Bin Laden. Either man would be hard pressed to find a desert oasis with the appeal of this safe, and fertile land. Each man would be comforted by the thought of a bomb-laden truck coming down this driveway, and every one like it from Nebraska to the East coast, from Colorado to California. Imagine the feeling of sick joy that would permeate the lives of our enemies, if we Americans had to sit on our roofs with portable rocket launchers, ready to defend our homes against superior firepower.

If you can imagine that, then you can imagine WWIII. Not the war we all grew up fearing, where superpowers exchange ICBM's, and the world is wiped out by stupidity, as each strike is launched by madmen who fully understand the forces they're subjecting the world to with the types of weapons available today. (Can you imagine of the torrorists did have a way to get a nuclear device on one of those airliners? -The whole Eastern seaboard would be a poisonous hell!) The war I've imasgined for quite some time would be a war of infiltration, and sneak attacks, which is exactly what just happened. That war, like WWII before it, has been in play in small pockets all over the world. Those preliminary battles, between Britain and the IRA, the Israeli's vs the Palestinians, and so many other localized guerilla conflicts have provided precedent, training, and experience have set the stage for what is falling into place all around us. Who knows how many more attacks are planned, here and elsewhere in the world.

As we and other nations sat and idly watched the Nazi buildup during the 1930's, we let a lion grow teeth that were almost too big to overcome. As a world, that is what we have been doing with terrorists. We have tried to fight them with the rule of law established after WWII, and yet the enemy we fight recognizes no such rules. We are wise to this, and we are bringing this information to NATO, Russia, China, and other nations who have at stake every bit as much as we do. My hope is that diplomacy does prevail with the negotiations required to face this, but my hope is also that these nations will face the evidence of hard truth that this war is an ugly one. It can't be fought or defined by the neat geometrical patterns of borders and idealogies. It is a war that has to be fought within each country at the same time it is fought on the ground of any country who would stand up for terrorism. It is a war that was not started by the US, however questionable our military objectives may have been in the past. It comes down to a force motivated by fear and hatred, faced with overwhelming odds, fighting with desperation tactics, that are hard to emulate without becoming terrorists ourselves.

I have never, in the past, shown a high regard for President Bush on this board, and that is the nature of American politics. I have many idealogical differences, and political ideals, and I openly exchange them in a civilized forum, in the hope that the dialogue between myself and the opposing party will prompt other Americans to think about what this country stands for, where it's future is headed, and to understand that their opinions and beliefs should be shaping our destiny every bit as much as mine should. That aspect of freedom has always tasted very good to me, smelling as sweet as fresh grass clippings outside my window, which, by the way, I am allergic to.

But even I understand that Mr. Bush has surrounded himself with some men who clearly understand the nature of war, and although I have accused them of being stuck in the ways of outdated warfare, I have to acknowledge that their most recent wake up call has hit its mark. These are men who can adapt, and learn to face the type of enemy they now face, through a combination of existing and innovative techniques. For some reason, I'm not worried about them "going off half-cocked" and doing something stupid, like say, detonating a nuclear weapon, or cimmitting large numbers of troops to a theatre they're unsure of. That's not gonna happen, and I think everyone should have some faith. This doesn't mean that someone shouldn't be shouting "use caution, use caution." It's important that somebody be that voice, after all.

But it won't be me. In most ways of thinking, I have always been, and always will be a pacifist. If there's a way to resolve a situation with no bloodshed, it is best we take every measure to do so. As a student of history, however, I must issue a caution of my own: There comes a time when pacifism becomes tantamount to aiding and abetting the enemy. You don't invite Mussolini into your back yard for tea, and to watch the kitties. He would likely regard such an invitation as a chance for the opportunity to either gather intelligence, or to perform the actual attack. All you'd have is a broken cup, and some dead kitties, and if you were alive, it would be as a prisoner of a hostile force.

Right now, I'm living my life, mowing my lawn, going to work, and spending time with my wife. I'm going on living, because I've been blessed with that right, that duty. I'm not willing to see our freedoms erode in the name of security. I'm not willing to give murderers that victory. I'm looking off into the horizon over the fields of corn, and I'm seeing the world as if for the very first time. It's a beatiful world, filled with wonders to delight, and terrors to freeze your heart. It's a world worth living for, and it's most certainly a world worth dying for.

For those who are thinking about the idea that terrorists have some valid points: that they've seen innocent civilians destroyed by superior military forces, that they live in a cruel world while we have had it so soft over here, sure, those are all valid points. But those simple facts are seperate to the idea of taking it upon yourself to be judge, jury and executioner for hundreds or thousands of people. To do that is to declare war upon a civilized nation, and in doing that, you enact all that is implied by such.

So every country that is a hotbed of terrorism can do their part, and round up any terrorists they're aware of, allow other nations who are better equipped to come in and help in that effort, or to actually perform that effort for them, and go to sleep at night knowing they're participating in what's necessary to make the world safe. Those who will stand on formalities, and try to apply rule of law to defending acts of war, will be in effect, signing their own death warrant. They simply will not be allowed to exist, under their current system.

What is it going to take, a bomb in Paris, a truck in Peking, an airline jet in Singapore, and thousands more innocent lives? Don't bet on it. Terrorism has been a thorn in the world's side for far too long as it is, and in the aftermath of this latest attack, there is undoubtedly a feeling of hope in the terrorist community that will embolden those who have harbored ill will towards various nations across the world. I personally wasn't surprised when NATO jumped in behind us, and I wouldn't be surprised if the UN shows us more solidarity than we expect. I am in no way opining that we are beholden to the UN Security Council in any way, I'm just saying that probably isn't going to be much of an issue.

There is reason to look deeper into the history of terrorism, and to be well schooled in it's ways of operation. Not just for our government, or even the world's governments, but for each and every one of us. This world wide web of ours is an excellent resource for information, and I highly recommend anybody reading this post do some studying, before making up their mind about the stand they're going to take.

Obviously, war itself is immoral, and just plain wrong. Nobody can argue that fact. It is the act of killing human beings, and no sane person would ever wish to embark upon such a thing. It is with great sadness that I reflect how necessary it becomes, when faced with those bent on destruction, however.

We're a nation of free people, with a quality of life unimagined since the dawn of time. I am not wealthy, I am not well-connected, and yet, I still have my own little piece of paradise here, a place where my mind and soul can find peace. Many of you have lovely homes, with flower gardens of your own, and the privacy and room to become whatever it is you will become during this lifetime. Your limitations are few, due to a system of government that is not militaristic, and controlling, at least not like some of the harsh systems that have bred these terrorists. Perhaps if you or I had been raised watching our brothers and sisters suffer or die under the hands of cruel dictators, we too would be wild murderers with hate in our eyes, and destruction in our souls.

But we'll never know that, because we're not them. When we go to battle, we will do so with steely resolve, and not blind hatred. There's no need to hate our enemy. Unfortunately, there IS a need to kill our enemy. We don't have to like it, and we won't. We will stand together, though, as we have done many times in the past. We will help each other out here at home, doing whatever it takes to keep life moving through whatever dark times may come. If there is a gas shortage, we'll mow our lawns with electric mowers, or hand trimmers. We'll find ways to carpool, or bicycle to work, or companies such as mine, where 90% of our work is on computers will outsource us to our homes. We will find a way to overcome every single obstacle that comes our way, and we won't do it with sour faces, and a feeling of gloom, we'll be singing, our voices rising loud above the din that is mechanized warfare.

We are a strong people, and we are a good people. We have come farther than we ever imagined we would, or even could. Today, there are no Democrats, or Republicans, or any other political parties. There are only Americans. We have invited the entire world to join us, and become a world community where each country can be as proud to be French, or Chinese, or Ethiopian, or whatever, by showing unity, and belief in civilization. That is my hope, and that is my prayer.

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