Cold Mountain and random musings about the war and work...  

Since arriving here on September 10th, I haven't had a day off, until today (though I have to email in my hours everyday)...I usually work a 9am-9pm type of shift, sometimes working later, though it isn't hard intense labor, though often times emotionally taxing, it's the reality of campaign work--long hours. So my blogging isn't as frequent as I would like, nor is it the most meaningful posts.

Last night I was able to watch Cold Mountain. If you haven't seen this movie, you must. There are many wonderful parts in the movie, but one part with one quote from one of the characters, always sticks with me. Ruby, who plays a laborer who helps the main character, Ada, states, in regards to the Civil War, "They call this war a cloud over the land. But they made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say 'Shit, it's raining!'"

Do I even need mention how this quote applies to the Iraq War? If you still aren't quite getting it, check out this quote from the Retired Marine General Anthony Zinni, "It's pretty interesting that all the generals see it the same way, and all the others, who have never fired a shot and are hot to go to war, see it another.... We are about to...ignite a fuse in this region...we will rue the day we ever started."

The fuse? Oh, it's ignited and now there is a religious civil war in Iraq and I have to wonder how we can win a religious civil war in another country that we ignited by invading and occupying a sovereign nation. Please, tell me, 'cause I don't know how it is possible.

This next paragraph really deserves its own post, or a series of posts, but let's not forget the costs of this war. Cold Mountain was a grim reminder of what we lose when we engage in war. A mother who buries their child in the prime of their life. A wife who becomes a widow because her husband died in combat. A child who will never hear their father and/or mother call for them again. Sisters and brothers who lost that older sibling who provided so much wisdom and guidance. The cost of this war extends beyond the monetary costs ($10-12 billion a month!) and the non-monetary costs are what is most important and most costly to this country.

Indeed, the loss of one life is much too costly.