Right choices

Hello.

It seems to me that the people of the United States are in a predicament because of some bad choices, especially in the recent past.

The government's propaganda machine seems to be positioning itself for some more awfully wrong choices--and since the economy is rapidly deteriorating and the "war" or whatever the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is called is spreading to other "enemy" countries such as Iran and even China--these choices could bring a lot of misery to a lot of people.

Even though the USA, since world war two, has held a strong place in the world, I think it is now important, even very important, to act in concert with the opinions and plans of other countries. It is not a good time to go it alone.

One of the wisest of the world's living statesmen, the Dalai Lama, has suggested in his book “How to See Yourself as you really Are” that “The UN must become the chief instrument of world peace; it is the only source of hope for the small. Oppressed nations and hence for the planet as a whole.”

I hope you have a good and productive day.

Thomas

Pilgrim note

Hello again:

Here's a thought for the day:


Don't stay too short a time in a bad place or too long a time in a good place.

A pilgrim is always at home.



Brother Pilgrim


...

Grampus in the park

Welcome.

Yesterday I mentioned some of the critters we saw in the big nature park near our apartment. Tanya had her camera and snapped one of the more peculiar animals we saw there: namely, the famous Grampus. (Last seen with Nickolaus in Salzburg, Austria.)

He seems to be one of those mythical beasts that can appear just anywhere!

...

Spring in Ahimsaland

Hello,

It's a beautiful day here in Ahimsaland.

Lucky for us there is a big public park near our apartment with plenty of open space and a lot of native trees, plants and critters.

In our daily walks in the last few days we have seen five deer, a wounded mole ( which quickly hid itself in a pile of leaves), a three foot gopher snake sunning on the river trail bike path and lots of birds, butterflies and bees .

There is still some snow on the nearby mountains but the weather is springing into summer.

Mercenaries and The Draft

Hello, again.

You may be wondering where I have been for the last two days.

I take a two-day weekend off every week any my "off" days are Sunday and Monday. But I will be here the rest of the week.

Today I would like to write a bit about mercenaries.

You know that I am an American citizen--born and raised that way so there's no help for it.

And usually I am OK with my nationality--Americans are just people like anybody else, of course, but for the last few years we seem to have taken a very wrong turn in my opinion.

According to the received wisdom, Saddam of Iraq was building up a supply of "weapons of mass destruction" so we had to defend ourselves by invading Iraq and dealing with Saddam--which we did.

But we couldn't just walk away and leave the Iraqis without a government so we positioned ourselves to help them put one in, which we also did.

But without Saddam, the Iraqis decided to very much change the old status quo, and we Americans were on hand to be the military police of the country while the Iraqis fumblingly and with much bloodshed worked out a new government.

This whole process has taken a lot longer than most of us Americans expected.

What most of us thought would be a fairly quick "liberation" of the exploited Iraqis and a disposing of the weapons of mass destruction has become a sort of open-ended "Viet Namish" situation which goes on and on with no end in sight.

Which brings us to the theme of today's blog: mercenaries and the draft.

The American armed forces are now all volunteers (that is, fighters for pay--or mercenaries)--which means the men and women in the services and in Iraq are there because they have volunteered to be.

Thousands have now been killed and wounded in Iraq--but perhaps one reason why there has been no huge American backlash against the war is because all these people have volunteered to walk in harm's way.

I don't like the prospect of drafting people into the armed forces, but drafting soldiers would put a different face on the war--and make it a real war, something to try seriously to "win" and end.

...