A Second Hand Conjecture

Who jumped first in South Ossetia has become a bit of a information war between Georgia and Russia. Today, the Georgian government went a ways toward resolving it by releasing recordings of intercepted radio traffic preceding the Russian invasion. The tapes seem to demonstrate that elements of the Russian invasion force had entered Georgian territory twenty hours before the Georgian army responded.

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I’m beginning to sense that anti-Palin hysteria is building toward a collective psychological meltdown of truly epic proportions on the Democratic side of our political divide. Today, Democratic consultant Dan Conley angrily pushed us a little further to the brink of that by arguing that the selection of Palin by McCain was “cynical, undemocratic and frankly, unpatriotic.” Wow.

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Some thoughts from Hal Moore on war, peace, and reconciliation.

When the blood of any war soaks your clothes and covers your hands, and soldiers die in your arms, every breath forever more becomes an appeal for a greater peace, unity and reconciliation.

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From face-to-face combat to arm-in-arm friendship — unity was restored by our efforts to come together. I implore our great leaders on “the many days after” Memorial Day to advance this most worthy of causes for peace and unity. People and nations rise above their differences only through effort, through trust.

Without trust, unity is beyond reach and restoration. With trust, unity is within reach and preservation. We must reach out to others in order to preserve the freedom we hold dear. We are each called to bear witness to the ideals of liberty. When we treat others with the respect and friendship that true liberty engenders, they will be brought into that same liberty.

When the heartbeat of one soldier stops forever, the heartbeat of our nation should accelerate, driving us to ensure that this life was not sacrificed in vain. That racing pulse should rouse us to seek, at all costs, better ways to understand, forgive and deal with our differences. Reconciliation should always be our objective.

We owe our dead and their survivors no less! We owe our children much more! We owe our children’s children even more! Let us pay our debts.

God bless America.

And God bless the men and women who serve her everywhere, past, present and future.

Have a happy and safe Memorial Day this weekend, and remember those who’ve sacrificed for the liberties we have.

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The ever entertaining Girl in Short Shorts, on why she’s again wasting her vote on the Libertarian Party: “If a restaurant gives you a choice between eating food laced with rat poison or with arsenic, you might want to eat somewhere else, even if it’s a long drive, and even if the new restaurant hasn’t gotten great reviews.” She’s supporting the crunchy Ronpaulist “Peace Driven Candidate,” Christine Smith.

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The Berkeley City Council has passed several resolutions denouncing the “barbarity” of the USMC recruiting office in their rather ridiculous city, as well as encouraging Code Pink to protest it regularly (including giving CP reserved parking in front of the Marine office). Big Dog argues for an American boycott of Berkeley as retaliation. I thought about joining in, but realized my budget for patchouli scented hemp oil peace vigil candles was already at zero.

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(Listening notes: Dedicated to cussed Irish beekeepers everywhere: The Pogues, The Specials, The Fall, U2, and The Chieftains)

Over at Captains Quarters I noticed this:

Every time war footage from Lebanon flickers across the flat screen television in my apartment on the 30th floor of a high-rise in mid-town Manhattan, I am overwhelmed by a deep feeling of sadness. When I scan through the news on the Internet each morning, I’m overtaken by anger. The result is confusion: I go to sleep at night thinking I am a dove and wake up in the morning to find out I am a hawk.

It’s gotten so bad that I have even started missing Ariel Sharon, the former prime minister of Israel who has been lying in a coma for the past six months. I find myself writing screenplays in my mind: Sharon wakes up, stares at the TV screen, and sees Israel invading Lebanon. Sharon, I think, would presume he has landed in hell where he is damned to relive the most dreadful moments of his political career.

The very fact that I am reminiscing about Sharon is shocking — many people of my generation can’t stand him. The man led Israel into its traumatic “optional war” of 1982 when we invaded Lebanon — an experience that left behind numerous scars on the Israeli population, both physical and psychological. The soldiers who fought in southern Lebanon then did not understand why they where there; why they lost their friends, their youth and their innocence; why they had to fight against an unknown enemy and patrol the streets of Lebanese cities — passing by civilians who were drinking coffee and playing backgammon in the cafes.

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