Saturday Thoughts

I've been really struggling with the issue of the war lately. People want us to withdraw and go to Darfur, but the reality is iof we were in Darfur and genocide were happening in Iraq, they'd be saying go to Iraq. Look at Kosovo. KFOR is still there and they dare not leave, because it's a tinderbox of religious hate. I think it's hard for some Americans to understand that level of hate and fear. We have our whacked out groups that hate, and they get it, but the average American doesn't get it. You can't even make analogies. It's likeLutherans hating United Methodists because they take their heritage from Wesley instead of Luther himself. And the Lutherans would declare the United Methodists not real Christians. And along the way people would get killed, because their would be misunderstandings about what the Methodists believed. Eventually, it would all just fall apart and it would be a wrest for power. More killing. But that analogy only works conceptually, because the chances of Lutherans and Methodists fighting over something is ridiculous -- because nowhere do they have power to fight over.

In Iraq, the Sunni and the Shi'a have a great deal to fight over, because whoever wins gets to persecute the other side. It's a matter of honor. And if the Shi'a manage to win you can bet two things will happen: 1) the Sunnis will get theres for the 20 year reign of terror they had on the Shiites and 2) there will be an alliance with Shia-strong Iran. The Sunni Shiite issue is starting to color incidents in the rest of the Middle East, in places like Lebanon, where the government is Sunni, but Hezbollah is Shiite, and they have maneuvered themselves into a favorable position for elections.

How do we get peace among terrorists? What would Gahndi say? What would Martin Luther King, Jr. say to us? Would they say get our people out and let God sort it out? Are we to turn the other cheek to terrorists?

This are the things I think about. Luckily now I'll have lot's more time on my hands to think about it.

Here's something a soldier wrote. He just died in Iraq from an improvised explosive device. He died with three other men. Read what he wrote. One thing I know, is I don't want to turn into a person who just thinks about this stuff.

2LT Mark Daily