White Steepled Church
Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the great island of Nantucket! Great to be with you on this Sunday morning, the twentieth day of March, 2011, a spectacular morning here on Cape Cod and the Islands, as we just enjoyed the brilliant star filled night coupled with the “super moon”, 14 percent larger in the sky, as the oval shaped pattern of the moon’s orbit around the earth came as close to our ‘home’ planet as it can, an occurrence that happens only once in a ‘blue moon’ (every eighteen years), especially when it coincides with a ‘full moon’, affecting everything from tides to people’s moods, creating spectacular images of the moon from all over the world, as we look forward to another Sunday morning here in the United States, a day spent, by yours truly, sifting through all of the ‘information’ served up by pundits and politicians alike, the best of which can be seen on NBC and ABC, “This Week, with Christiane Amanpour“, and “Meet the Press, with David Gregory”, not necessarily in that order. The United States of America is at war again with another Middle Eastern country as of 2 p.m., EDT, Saturday afternoon, yesterday, the 19th of March, 2011. With a coalition of 21 countries and the backing of a United Nations resolution, not to mention an endorsement from the Arab League itself, the United States launched 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles from U.S. war ships and submarines from an estimated distance of 500 miles, somewhere out in the Mediterranean Sea. An early report this morning also confirmed that U.S. warplanes have entered the fray, with Stealth bombers, F-15, and F-16 fighter jets hitting ground troops and other targets, broadening the scope of this campaign, dubbed, “Odyssey Dawn”. Again, this all under the authority of the U.N. resolution adopted last week, with some nations in that body, such as China and Germany, abstaining, offering a ‘no vote’, or, in American Gallup poll terms, “I’m not sure”. This effort’s main goal is to stop Moammar Gaddafi from waging war against his own people, a vicious war at that, as thousands have already died as a result of this intense power struggle in the ever increasingly volatile Middle East. The establishment of a ‘no fly zone’ entails real military strikes, as evidenced by the past 32 hours, and as the coalition establishes not only air superiority, pounding some 20 targets thus far, taking out surface-to-air missile capability in Tripoli, as well as two cities to the east, Misrata and Sert, the French Air Force of at least 20 fighter jets struck at the rebel stronghold to the east, the city of Benghazi, hundreds of miles east of the capital city of Tripoli, hitting a pro-Libyan armored personnel truck, making this conflict very real indeed. Images emerging from the area, with a Libyan plane seen falling from the sky, brings all of this ‘home’ to Americans, with America, the United States of America, and it’s people, being a very war weary nation, seemingly being at war forever now in both Afghanistan and Iraq, 10 plus years now, and wondering out loud to themselves, hopefully, ‘what does this really mean for the United States?’, ‘how long is our commitment there, really?’, and, of course, the 64,000 dollar question, ‘why do we feel the need to stabilize a country like Libya, when far worse atrocities are, and have been, occurring just south of that country in neighboring Sudan, where genocide has been rampant for years now?’ What, too soon? Too soon to ask those vital questions? No pressure due to oil interests or ‘market stability’? Alas, I digress. According to reports from ABC NEWS last night, there will be no strikes east of Sert, where the rebels are said to be in ‘control’. This will be just the first phase of a multi-phase operation. U.S. General Carter Ham is in charge, with Admiral Sam Locklear coordinating the actual strikes. But once this initial phase is complete, Ham and Locklear, will pass authority over to a coalition partner, who will, ‘takeover’ from there. That’s the ‘plan’ anyway, sorry if I sound a little skeptical about the whole attacking a ’sovereign nation’ kind of thing, as it has gone so well in our glorious military past, at least since the days of the Vietnam War. The general stated in a press conference yesterday, “this is just the first phase in this operation … this multi-phase military operation … this is an international military effort … urged by the Libyan people themselves … and by other Arab nations …”, those being the salient points of his sales pitch. The next phase will be the ‘no fly zone’ which will be from Tripoli to Benghazi, involving hundreds of aircraft. U.S. F-16 fighter jets, as previously mentioned will take a part in this effort, perhaps our best fighter jet, but most of the fighters will be from Britain, France and other allied partners. The U.S. will provide support aircraft like air re-fuelers, communication aircraft and jammers, so Gaddafi’s troops cannot talk to one another. “This first phase is scheduled to last just few days and what the U.S. military is watching tonight is how the Gaddafi regime will react to those attacks, and what kind of a response that might require.” Thank you for that report from Martha Raddatz of ABC NEWS. It is true that the French and British have lead this attack on Gaddafi, a truly brutal terrorist dictator who is killing his own people, and thus, the U.S. was truly lead into this conflict, not a conflict it walked into lightly, as diplomatic efforts failed and with international war crimes being brought against Colonel Gaddafi, by the International Tribunal in the Netherlands, Den Hague, the real home of the United Nations, Gaddafi really doesn’t have anywhere to go. His rhetoric matches that reality. And you can couple that with the fact that with so much unrest going on in the Middle East in general, with populist pro-democratic uprisings in at least six Arab nations, some on a ‘cooler’ boil than others, President Barrack Obama had to eventually side with the people, as Gaddafi broke one promise of a ’sieze fire’ after another. One thing is for sure, regardless of what you personally may think about the Middle East, you would be wise to brush up on your history in the region, because if you think ‘March Madness’, the U.S. men’s college basketball tournament, that takes place in this country every March, with 64 teams competing for the national championship, is ‘crazy’ and unpredictable, then you will love the mini-wars, flareups and counterintelligence efforts, such as the ever growing problem with nuclear weapons being developed in Iran, that will continue for God knows how long in that volatile region of the world–proving it to be quite ‘madcap’, zany, kooky, and even a little, as evidenced by Gaddafi’s insane rambling speeches complete with a white umbrella, ‘nutty’ at times…so keep it tuned to MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, or even, if desperate, CNN, but for God’s sakes, don’t tune into FOX NEWS, we have enough ‘insanity’ at the moment, thank you very much. Right Glenn? I keep waiting for Glenn Beck to just break down one day and start yelling, “we’re slashing prices at Beck University by thousands of dollars, everything must go, re-written American history books, ‘authored’ by the good folks at the Texas Board of Education, re-writing American history since the year of 2000 A.D., signed authentic gold coins from Gold Line, TM, yes, signed rare gold coins that are worth less than what you buy them for, signed, before he died, by Abraham Lincoln himself, God rest his soul, perfect for parties as a conversation piece, where you can say to your friends, ‘hey, look at this coin signed by Abraham Lincoln himself, isn’t that just crazy?’, so come on down, we’re slashing prices for admission to our worthless college, on par with Pat Robertson’s U, so low, it’s INSANE.” Something like that. My heart and prayers, however, as always, go out to the young men and women who put on the military uniform, who put themselves in harms way for our nation’s security, defending our country from enemies, both foreign and domestic, every day, never asking questions of the political nature while serving, who also protect the innocent victims of genocide and atrocities by brutal dictators around the world, like the current one in Libya, over the centuries, all afforded through the United States’ venerable armed traditions of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. May you all be safe wherever you are on this planet earth today, and always, and may someday, some way, there be no need for war of any kind, a world where our thirst for PEACE and LOVE for our fellow man outweigh our incessant seeming need for violence and conflict. GOD’S continued SPEED to the people of Japan. Have a wonderful day everyone and GOD BLESS us ALL. PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
