By: Jana Greene
I hesitated to post this, as some have suggested that my blog platform should be about recovery issues only. They have shared their displeasure when I post about anything political. I am in no way an expert on anything geo-political, but I am an observer of our world, as are you.
This is a place where I blab about various subjects like middle-aged muffin tops, the time I ate an entire box of Oreos in one sitting, Jesus and his crazy radical grace, cats who try to drown their toy mice in their water bowls, thoughts on marriage and parenting, current events on occasion, which brings me to Syria.
If every post on The Beggar’s Bakery must be about recovery, how about this: Watching the news makes me want to drink.
There you go.
I try not to watch the news in any way, shape or form any more, because I would prefer my head not to explode. But waking up to the dozens of references about the Syrian situation in my Facebook feed, I figured I’d weigh in.
The CNN online headline declared today: Trump orders barrage in response to chemical attack. And the sh*t storm on social media is absolutely blowing up. War drums are beating. The Cult of Personality is already deciding to drown out the drums with screaming indignation.
Even CNN used the term ‘IN RESPONSE TO.’ Not just because Trump was in cranky mood and felt like starting a war, but ‘in response to’ or ‘because of’ the actions of terrorists. The line between war mongering and taking action for protect others from genocide have apparently become twisted.
Here’s the horror: Collateral damage is a by-product of fighting the greater evil. innocent people have been killed in any and every act of battle. There are always civilian casualties; ask anyone who survived the Blitz.
If your heart breaks for the refugees and and you feel a sense of urgency about helping them flee, yet you think that the world should welcome them in other countries (and I do think we should as much as we can, while making sure the needs of our own hungry children and veterans are met), I think that gives us an incomplete picture. This leaves the wills of the oppressed people completely out of the equation. Some of us think shuffling them around, so that we can feel noble about it is the endgame, but these are human beings! Their beloved HOMELAND is being destroyed. It’s where they have lived and raised generations of family, and have become cohesive communities. They risk losing their very culture. They MIGHT, if given the chance, want to stay in the lands of their fore-fathers. They are having to leave because they are being bullied and murdered by rebels. I’m sorry, but just relocating people and calling it a day? that doesn’t look like justice to me.
Bad Guys vs. Good Guys 101 – evil people don’t want to talk about stopping the carnage they are inflicting. They want to inflict ever more carnage.
Bad guys perpetuate atrocities. Good guys try and stop (or at least stem) the damage.
The same people who are angry about Trump’s move to kill the rebels are the people who think we can afford to absorb all the Syrian refugees. We cannot adequately feed and care for the American veterans who DID fight against the last World War – and are now old and sick. That should outrage us just as much.
Its a messy, confusing, awful situation all around. If not addressed on the world stage, more and more refugees will be created daily. This is not 100 people in harm’s way we are talking about. And there are not 200 soldiers massacring them. It’s so much bigger than that.
Cut off the head of the snake, lest more and more eventually require fleeing their homes and and losing their communities, too.
The enemy is vicious – this one more so than ever, because there is NO honor in their fighting. They do not fight mano-to-mano, but weave themselves amongst the innocents. Do we not go after the bad guys now, because they are so manipulative and cowardly?
Howmany refugee babies and women would be acceptable to sacrifice before we really got serious about killing the scourge that is massacring them? Yet more will die at the hands of the evil doers than would be imaginable if we allow what’s going on now. Round up every single Syrian fMiky and place them elsewhere, and the evil just spreads out further. Surely no one is suggesting that we avoid justice for the refugees.
Some, I suspect, are especially upset about this turn of events because Trump is involved in it. Hey, I don’t like the guy either. Not a big fan. I AM, however, a fan of putting an end to the unfathomable suffering the Syrians are currently going through.
We MUST grow a pair as a nation, because evil has been allowed to ferment and spread with no checks and balances for years now. We had become impotent against so much of the evil in the world. It’s as (again my opinion) Obama was thinking, “Oh hey, I’ll turn a blind eye to the genocides going on all over the world, and give them a good 8 years to marinate, become better armed. ISIS is not our problem, and by the way, UP YOURS, ISRAEL!” Alas, there is not one single thing we can do about the past, but we can surely move forward to promote justice for heartless killers.
But that is a blog for another day.
Here is the absolute and horrifying truth: If we want to stop the baby killing, you will likely accidentally kill babies, because the enemy used civilians as shields. They nest among the same people they are wiping out. That should piss a lot of people off.
Does it?
Should we not gone to war against Hitler because there would be so many casualties? Six million Jews lost their lives during WWII, and may have faced racial extinction, had we not stepped in. The families in the UK, who lost people to collateral damage, understood in order to be free, some will die. Because there are BAD GUYS.
When did we decide to turn a blind eye to such large-scale torment of people groups? When did we decide to ‘negotiate’ with the Bad Guys?
How soon we forget history!
I freaking HATE war.
I hate that it is a necesecity. We should be done with pussyfooting around evill. My heart breaks for ALL of the innocents whose lives have been snuffed out or forever damaged.
I wish we could all sit around with all of Earth’s residents, coming in peace and singing folksy songs around a campfire. Oh how I wish it were that easy! Ask the poor refugees if they’d like to join in. I suspect the cannot, as they are currently dying at the hands of monsters.
It’s tragic as Hell.
As a matter of fact, war IS Hell, according to General William Tecumseh Sherman, who noted this pure truth during the Civil War. Had he not engaged anyway, the barbaric and evil practice of slavery may not have ended here in the Land of the Free.
Join me in praying for all involved.
(*And yes, I am still sober. #PlatformFacts)
God bless us, every one.
Musings of a Gypsy Soul 