Three In A Row...

Here we go again.

By my count, it was March 19, 2003 when President Bush sent U.S. forces into Iraq.

We're still there, of course. We'd been in Afghanistan since October 2001, although we diverted most of the effort in Afghanistan to Iraq.

We're still in Afghanistan.

Of course.

Anybody want to place bets on how this will go?

First, we cheered as Libyans revolted and took control of half the country.

Next, we waited, thinking that Gadhafi (remember when we called him Kaddafy??) was toast.

Then, we watched as his forces began nibbling away at the poorly armed and organized rebels' gains. Cities and towns got taken back, retaken, retaken again.

Now, with practically nothing left as a haven for rebels except Benghazi, we decide to move.

Must have been a few neighbor-against-neighbor episodes in there. Quite a few.

And what comes next?

I got two things to say: 1) Where's the money for this coming from? 2) Whose sons and daughters are going to be there to police up the mess when the Libyan air defenses are crushed, the military dispersed and neighbor-against-neighbor clashes erupt as the Libyan economy further collapses and the blame thing starts to set in?

Another question. If Libya were buying U.S. debt the way China has been, would our response have been different? How? I wonder.

Pray for peace.

Roger

In God We Trust?

This penny appeared in the offering basket at Operation Nightwatch last Sunday night.

It reminds me of something Mr. Behrens said perhaps 55 years ago. Mr. Behrens was principal of St. Paul's Lutheran school in rural Nebraska, my school for the first eight years of my education. All our U.S. coins and currency bear the words In God We Trust. Mr. Behrens pointed out how the more of them we have in our pockets, the less we seem to trust in God.

That was before sports stars and rock stars and Wall Street stars made millions and billions.

Lately, I wonder whom we trust and how much.

Consider what we can't do because we don't have the money (bear in mind, that "we don't have the money" often comes across as "it might hurt the economy"):

1. Be the leading innovator and global example for renewable energy, all sorts of new technologies and replacing throw-away lifestyles with sustainable ones.

2. Provide universal health care cheaper than we do it now non-universally.

3. Provide ourselves with transportation and infrastructure that doesn't increasingly make us look like a thrid-world nation.

4. Begin planning for the implications of global climate change (even if it's 100% non-human caused, climate change will require nearly everything about our lives to change in some way; the sooner we plan and prepare, the less disruptive and costly it will be).

5. Work increasingly toward non-military responses to terrorism, poverty and ignorance. I'm dead certain that they would be far cheaper and far more effective, both in the near-term and long-term, than what we are doing now--which, by the way, we can't afford.

We seem to be approaching the world from one perspective only, that of scarcity. We are afraid there won't be enough so we withdraw from embracing the world of possibilities. Our actions seem to say that we trust our dollars and not our God. Are we more motivated by fear than love?

I'd love to be wrong about this.

What do you think?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Roger