Perhaps this will be remembered as the Month of Hurricanes. Across the country three hurricanes of significant size have rumbled across the sea and harrowed the South. Reminds me again of how glad I am to live here in this relatively quiet part of the world. Occasional earthquake, windstorm, or volcano notwithstanding! We don't see these things every year.
Weather today is blustery and wet. I believe I heard that we had four inches of rain yesterday. Even for Oregon that's a pretty wet day. And about this sudden shift in weather....we went from having sweltering ninety degree days just weeks ago to suddenly being autumnal- cool and wet. The squirrels have been hip hopping their way around the yards and powerlines with nuts for weeks. Harbinger of an early winter? Maybe.... Regardless, we really aren't scheduled to have autumn until after the middle of October. Apparently no one is listening to my complaints- the weather continues indifferent.
The terrorist attack on the Russian grade school recently was horrible. The willingness of the terrorists to use children as hostages and their indifference to their own survival suggests they are operating with a state of mind that we (or at least I) can't comprehend. What would I feel if I were Chechen and had been living in the blasted hell that province has been for the past many years? I imagine that these people have seen so much that they cared for stripped away that they no longer feel they can allow themselves to feel. In Apolcalypse Now, Col. Kurtz describes being on a Special Forces team going into a village and inoculating the children against polio. Shortly after they leave, a villager-distraught- calls them to come back. They find that the VC have cut off the inoculated arms of each of the children and piled them in the center of the village. Kurtz describes having a moment of utter clarity that the enemy have "willed" themselves to these horrors because they know it is the way to victory- to sacrifice the few for the many- and that the American forces will never win unless they too adopt that steely resolve- which Kurtz sees not cruel but carefully strategic. Kurtz is a marked man because he's chosen to act on his insights and the American commanders have decided he must be 'terminated with extreme prejudice'.
Back in real life, I think we are seeing people in many places in the world who have reached that point- and the wars are no longer over 'national' territories. At some level the wars are between ideas. And we can't use normal tools to beat those who have already accepted their death and come to battle 'willing'.
In another part of real life, Vladimar Putin's government says it has the right to wage preemptive war against terrorists within Russia or without. He intimates that our government is using a double standard when we differentiate between the people he calls 'terrorists' and the people we use that word for. Isn't this dialogue the spreading ripple of our own actions in stating that we can wage 'preemptive war' against Saddam Hussein? I bloody hate to say "I told you so" because the potential consequences of this sequence of events are not in our control. I recently heard a former American intelligence operative observe that we are not taking seriously the biggest country which both harbors terrorists and has weapons of mass destruction- for sure. That country would be Russia. I think that's right on target.
And back to the Chechens. And the dozens of others who have experienced the stripping away of the luxury of human kindness in various parts of the world. They're out there. And we are always going to be on the other side of the line of blood they've drawn. I might well be criticized for being pessimistic and looking on the dark side. I guess I don't assume that bad things are always going to happen....but I think only fools refuse to try to understand what's really going on around them and assume things will 'be okay'. We'll see.
Weather today is blustery and wet. I believe I heard that we had four inches of rain yesterday. Even for Oregon that's a pretty wet day. And about this sudden shift in weather....we went from having sweltering ninety degree days just weeks ago to suddenly being autumnal- cool and wet. The squirrels have been hip hopping their way around the yards and powerlines with nuts for weeks. Harbinger of an early winter? Maybe.... Regardless, we really aren't scheduled to have autumn until after the middle of October. Apparently no one is listening to my complaints- the weather continues indifferent.
The terrorist attack on the Russian grade school recently was horrible. The willingness of the terrorists to use children as hostages and their indifference to their own survival suggests they are operating with a state of mind that we (or at least I) can't comprehend. What would I feel if I were Chechen and had been living in the blasted hell that province has been for the past many years? I imagine that these people have seen so much that they cared for stripped away that they no longer feel they can allow themselves to feel. In Apolcalypse Now, Col. Kurtz describes being on a Special Forces team going into a village and inoculating the children against polio. Shortly after they leave, a villager-distraught- calls them to come back. They find that the VC have cut off the inoculated arms of each of the children and piled them in the center of the village. Kurtz describes having a moment of utter clarity that the enemy have "willed" themselves to these horrors because they know it is the way to victory- to sacrifice the few for the many- and that the American forces will never win unless they too adopt that steely resolve- which Kurtz sees not cruel but carefully strategic. Kurtz is a marked man because he's chosen to act on his insights and the American commanders have decided he must be 'terminated with extreme prejudice'.
Back in real life, I think we are seeing people in many places in the world who have reached that point- and the wars are no longer over 'national' territories. At some level the wars are between ideas. And we can't use normal tools to beat those who have already accepted their death and come to battle 'willing'.
In another part of real life, Vladimar Putin's government says it has the right to wage preemptive war against terrorists within Russia or without. He intimates that our government is using a double standard when we differentiate between the people he calls 'terrorists' and the people we use that word for. Isn't this dialogue the spreading ripple of our own actions in stating that we can wage 'preemptive war' against Saddam Hussein? I bloody hate to say "I told you so" because the potential consequences of this sequence of events are not in our control. I recently heard a former American intelligence operative observe that we are not taking seriously the biggest country which both harbors terrorists and has weapons of mass destruction- for sure. That country would be Russia. I think that's right on target.
And back to the Chechens. And the dozens of others who have experienced the stripping away of the luxury of human kindness in various parts of the world. They're out there. And we are always going to be on the other side of the line of blood they've drawn. I might well be criticized for being pessimistic and looking on the dark side. I guess I don't assume that bad things are always going to happen....but I think only fools refuse to try to understand what's really going on around them and assume things will 'be okay'. We'll see.
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