Thursday Again

Well it's Thursday again and Bob and I are going to eat lunch at the new Eggberts today. I tried to call Marilyn but she must be at the hospital with Jack. Her sister was to have left today for Colorado and Lori won't be there until Saturday. I may run up to the hospital and see if I can convince her to come with us. She is going to ruin herself trying to stay with Jack so much of the time. She weighs less then 90 pounds.

I cleaned out my fall/winter closet this morning and took two big sacks of older clothing I could no longer wear to the Presbyterian Church thrift shop. Now I will have room for some newer things if I should need them.

I did not sleep well last night. Both my arms hurt again. I woke up at 3:00AM and never did really get back to sleep. About 4:45 I just got up. Missy was being ornery. She chased up the hall and scratched on the skirt of the sofa. I clapped my hands at her and that settled her down some. I let her out when I went out to water my plants. Then she came back in without question.

More later....

I seldom agree with any stand Kansas legislators take but this time I fully agree. The last thing the American people need is another war of any kind. First of all, we are still involved with a tremendously expensive unfunded war. We have mostly left Iraq but terrible violence still occurs there nearly every day. Some of that violence also happens against our "peace keepers" who are there to train a mostly illiterate population of Iraqi soldiers who are supposed to be keeping the peace. That isn't happening. These men cannot even read the directions to the very sophisticated weapons we have left for them to use to keep that peace. Some of them have used those weapons on our soldiers who are there to help them train. I know this because my youngest son, age 52, who is regular army and has been deployed there four times, ran the Iraqi Police Academy. My older son, age 58, and an Air Force Reserve member also has been deployed there two times. The first time he was a member of the National Guard.

This violence is a civil war.

Syria is another civil war. Interference by America, acting almost entirely alone cannot settle their civil war. The violence of collateral damage (women and children) is terrible but this is not the first time saran gas has been used by a country. Saddam Hussein used it against the Kurds and we did nothing. Other countries have used it too but we have chosen to do nothing. I recall the terrible violence in Rwanda but we did nothing there either. We simply cannot use our limited resources to try to be the world's police force. We simply must learn the lessons from our past experience of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. If we choose to interfere again, we can expect some kind of domestic repercussion for our actions.