A day of reflection, a day of remembrance ....

I'm not going to go off on a rant today. No, not today. Today is a day for reflection and remembrance.

On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I was supposed to work 2nd shift, 3pm to 11pm. I was sitting in my living room eating some fruit and reading. I didn't have the television or radio on; I am really not much of a TV watcher, unless it is a ball game or one of the (few!) TV shows that I watch. The phone rang. It was my boss, calling to tell me that the office was closing for the day, and might be closed the next day as well. When I inquired why, she just told me to turn on my TV, didn't matter what channel, and I would figure it out. I tuned in a few minutes after the second plane hit the Towers. The rest of the day was spent in shock, anger, and grief. As I watched the replays of the plane strikes, I remember sitting on the floor, holding my dogs, tears in my eyes. Tears of anger? of grief? Both, I guess. I remember crying out, "What are they doing to my us? What are those bastards doing to my country?!?!?" My dogs, of course, couldn't answer. They knew something was up, because their "Daddy" NEVER acts that way. So they snugged up tight and whimpered just a little. Sometimes a dog is the best friend to have. (I was single and unattached at the time, didn't have a loved one nearby.)

Eventually, I  thought to make some phone calls. I knew that I had distant relatives in New York, but didn't have any contact info for them. So I got hold of a cousin that did, and was informed that as far as he had been able to learn, all of our people were OK. And, it turned out, they were, thank God. My family was fortunate; we did not lose anyone that day. Came close, though. Another cousin of mine, Bobby, was an Air Force officer, and had been posted to the Pentagon for awhile. I was able to find out that he wasn't in DC that day, and was also OK.

A few years later, I found out that I almost lost a brother-in-law, though. He wasn't my brother-in-law at the time, because I hadn't even met Deb yet. (That came three years later.) Art was also an Air Force officer, and was supposed to have been at the Pentagon that morning. In fact, he was supposed to have been at a meeting in the conference room that took a direct hit from one of the planes. But the meeting had been cancelled and rescheduled, so he was away from the Pentagon on some other errand when it hit. (For the conspiracy lunatics out there, meetings there are cancelled and/or rescheduled often, according to my cousin, so this was nothing unusual at all.)

We lost 2, 997 souls that day to al-Qaeda's terrorist violence. Today, we remember them. We mourn for them, with their families and loved ones. We will Never Forget!

Eleven years later, on September 11, 2012, we lost four more in an attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya. US Ambassador Christopher Stephens was killed in the attack on the main diplomatic compound, as was information management officer Sean Smith; they died, apparently, of smoke inhalation. At the CIA annex a few blocks away, two embassy security personnel, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, both former Navy SEALs, were also killed in mortar attacks as they fought valiantly to defend the civilians under their protection. Ten other personnel were injured in the two attacks.

Today, we remember them, as well. We mourn for them, with their families and loved ones. We will Never Forget!

Some have called for September 11 to be made a national holiday. Although I understand and sympathize with that, I find that I cannot agree. For one really sad reason. We have several holidays now that immortalize various events. The Fourth of July celebrates our national independence. Memorial Day commemorates our veterans, especially those that died in service to their country. Thanksgiving commemorates the Pilgrims and their struggle to survive a harsh wilderness, and the thanks we give to God for all the bounty He provides. Presidents' Day celebrates the birthdays of several of our greatest Presidents. Christmas celebrates the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Yet our nation, as a whole, has a horrible tendency to forget what these holidays are truly about, as they are turned into occasions for corporate greed in the form of sales & marketing ploys, and for some individuals to have an excuse to party and get drunk and act stupid. Therefore, lest September 11 be turned into some kind of Back to School Sales Day, or National Last Barbecue Before Autumn Day, let's  just leave it the way it is. A day that we will always remember with solemnity and reflection, a day to remember that we are a great nation despite our flaws, a united republic no matter our differences in politics, race, or creed. A day that impels us to Never Forget! those that died, and to see to it, somehow,  that perhaps their deaths were not wholly in vain. And, a day to remember to thank the police, firefighters, paramedics, and other first responders that serve us so faithfully every day, risking their own lives to protect us.

My take on our possible "involvement" in the Syrian civil war

Back towards the end of July, the United Nations estimated that the Syrian civil war had resulted in over 100,000 deaths. That number would be much higher by now of course. Different sources come up with different numbers, ranging from 83,000-plus to 125,000-plus.
But, the bottom line is that even by the most conservative estimates, many tens of thousands of people have died. A great number of them were innocent men, women, and children, non-combatants that either got caught in the cross-fire or were killed during indiscriminate bombing and missile strikes.
One given in all of this is that Syrian President President Bashar al-Assad is, by all accounts, a monster. Syria, under his leadership, has long been considered a major human rights violator, a supporter of terrorism, and a long-standing obstacle to any hope for peace in the Mid-East.
It has also long been known that many of the groups fighting to overthrow the Syrian government have ties of one sort or another to the uber-terrorist group al-Qaeda. This bunch has long been known to be seeking to obtain WMD's, including nuclear weapons.
So was it any real surprise to anyone that a weapon such as nerve gas was finally used in this fight? And given the nature of the parties involved, on both sides, it comes as no surprise to me that the United Nations has had trouble determining who, in fact, actually used the gas. Was it Assad's government troops? Was it a pro-Assad militia? Or was it one of the al-Qaeda-linked rebel groups? Other than our President, nobody seems to know for sure.
President Obama has been trying to make a case for using our military to intervene on behalf of the rebels by firing missiles and/or dropping bombs on Assad's positions. I am slightly bemused that his point man for this is none other than Secretary of State John Kerry-Heinz. After all, Kerry has always been known as the pacifist Viet Nam war protester and virulent critic of our war in Iraq. So his sudden transformation into a hawk is just a bit hard to take seriously. 
Let's face it. The 1,400 people killed in the gas attack on August 21 are just 1% or so of the people killed in this civil war alone. There have been atrocities committed all over the world on a fairly regular basis. There are North Korea, the Sudan, Rwanda, and Somalia, just to name a few off the top of my head. More Kurds were killed by Saddam in his gas attacks on that minority than were killed in Syria, yet we did nothing about it. The same can be said for Iraq's use of gas weapons in their war with Iran. (Our later war with Iraq was unrelated to those atrocities.) 

So something tells me that there is something else going on here, besides just simple outrage over war crimes.  It reminds me just a bit of President Clinton's decision to intervene in the Balkan war, which was the only other time our country involved itself in a regional conflict because of alleged atrocities. The timing then was highly suspect: he was coming under intense scrutiny over the Lewinsky affair, and needed to stage a major distraction. It worked, for awhile anyway. And so it is now. Is it any coincidence that this is coming to a head on the twelfth anniversary of the attacks on New York and the Pentagon? And, more to the point, the one-year anniversary of the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya that resulted in the death of our ambassador and three other men? I think not. I think that is PRECISELY why this is happening. There are growing demands for the impeachment of this President, his removal from office, and subsequent prosecution for what happened there, as well as for other fiascoes such as Fast And Furious, the NSA spying scandal, and the IRS targeting of conservatives. And I believe that is why this has become such an issue now. In reality, no matter who fired those gas-equipped weapons, they did our President a HUGE favor by providing him with the perfect thing to distract us from his own criminal incompetence.

Let's not let him get away with it. Contact your senators and representatives, and let them know that they MUST vote against our involvement in the Syrian civil war, and that they MUST hold his feet to the fire over Benghazi and the rest of his criminal bungling. Let them know that YOU will hold THEM responsible for how they vote on this. Do it now!