Peace Stripped Away

EDIT:  I'm moving this post under the section What Brings Peace.  After you read this post, please read Peace and Balance to gain true perspective.  I was wrong in making this post.  I leave it here only so people can see my transgression and may learn from it.  Perhaps they will not stumble in the way I have here, and so will not suffer having to humble themselves as I have had to do.  Other than this edit, I leave it as it was written, unedited any further.

I remember the day the towers fell.  I was at home with my kids.  I got a call from people I knew from living in New York.  A plane had hit one of the Twin Towers.  I knew a man who was a plumber who was to be doing work in the basement there that day, and a woman whose office was moving to one of the towers that day.  Cell phones were down, and no one could contact anybody.  I watched in horror as a second plane hit a second tower.  I was in shock and my mind could not make sense of what I was seeing.  It sounds cliche, but it was like I was in a dream state.  I heard another plane hit the Pentagon.  Still another crashed in a field somewhere.  What was going on?????

Turned out, the plumber's supplies never got delivered that day.  The secretary I knew whose company she worked for used a moving company, who didn't have anything ready to move yet.  Odd, huh?  Maybe providential.  Maybe luck.  At any rate, I found out hours later that these people were not in the towers when they fell.

It took a long time for me to get over my shock, and I'm not entirely sure I'm over it today.  Probably because there is a lot that doesn't make sense for me.  I, too, have questions that the 9/11 commission did not address or gave a lame answer to that didn't make any logical sense.  Do I think Bush brought the towers down?  Nah.  I'm just saying I also don't believe Al Qaeda did either.  Why?  I have many reasons.  The first and foremost one is...and this might shock you if you don't keep up with the Middle East crisis...the same Al Qaeda we fought in Afghanistan is the same Al Qaeda we are fighting alongside in Syria right at this moment.  Amazing what an invisible line will do for foreign relations.

At any rate, after September 11, the US Senate quickly passed the Patriot Act.  It was 300 pages long.  In it was a whole plethora of junk, some of which was legislation already brought before Congress and rejected.  Congress wasn't given enough time to go through it all, before it was voted on.  Indeed the bill was brought to the floor the very same day Congress was introduced to it.  Rep. Bobby Scott said, “I think it is appropriate to comment on the process by which the bill is coming to us. This is not the bill that was reported and deliberated on in the Committee on the Judiciary. It came to us late on the floor. No one has really had an opportunity to look at the bill to see what is in it since we have been out of our offices.” Rep. John Conyers, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, declared, “we are now debating at this hour of night, with only two copies of the bill that we are being asked to vote on available to Members on this side of the aisle.”  The bill passed on October 24 by a vote of 357-66.  The Senate passed the bill the very next day and the president signed the bill on October 26, 2001.

So what does that mean for Americans?  Well, it means for one (and I'll only list the one but there are many) that the President of the United States of America can invoke National Emergency Powers with a scope unprecedented even in Carter's reign.  It may surprise you to know that every President, every year, since 2001, has perpetuated National Emergency Powers.  Here's an article by USA Today.  How many terrorist attacks have we had since 9/11?  How many national emergencies have we had?

At any rate, I see Paris under a terrorist attack and my first thought is, "I wonder how many liberties and freedoms they will lose.  I wonder how long it will be until Obama puts boots on the ground in Syria who might just end up fighting a proxy war against Russia.  We were told to stay out of Syria's business...does that change now?  What will happen to the world and the French people in particular now?"

I am upset over the attacks, and the number of people who have died, and the fear and panic the French people are going through I can relate to some.  We were up until 6:00 this morning, keeping an eye on it.  Their peace has been taken away.  Stripped from them.  They are given rights by God to be free and left alone.  Rights given, not by a Constitution or Bill of Rights in the USA or France.  Rights granted by God.  This is self-evident...meaning it's crystal clear and isn't debatable.

I remember when the towers came down and I wanted blood.  I'm ashamed to admit it, but I had an anger so fierce it was like someone hit my child with their car.  And when we said we didn't care what country you lived in, if you were harboring terrorists there was no measure to how fast and how hard we were going to hit your country.  And I was right along with Bush because of speeches like this. 

Then...we went to war.  And we ended up bombing.....Iraq??  Yes we fought in other countries too like Afghanistan.  But...they had weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  Right?

And we bombed highways where the only thing on that highway was cars packed with suitcases full of people who just wanted to get out of the city.  Most were just regular people, guys.  Like you and me.

And, I can't write anymore.  My husband put on a uniform because he at one point believed in the US and all it stood for.  He still does.  It's just that our government is different than we once thought it was.  I don't think we are the good guys anymore.  I don't think we bring peace and democracy to nations anymore.  For more reasons than I can write.  I love our land.  I love the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  I love what the Statue of Liberty says.  I hate going to war for oil.  I hate poking other countries with a stick hoping they will give us a reason to declare war.  I hate imposing on other countries liberties.

I see the French people and I hope they will stand up against laws that are passed taking away freedoms and wars that are fought for wrong reasons.

As I said, I can't write anymore.  I won't proofread or make changes.  I understand if I get backlash.  Know this, though.  Everything I said and more can be sourced.  Yes, I can back up my opinions with events and facts.  All I ask is if you have a different opinion, really source your information.  Freedom of speech.  Let the backlash commence.