Keeping in Touch

On video skype with my brother Steve, g-chatting with my sister Raquel, texting my dear Chris and my other brother Marcos, while Steve has Mom on speaker phone as we try to convince her that I'm really there with Steve in Hawaii. This is how we bid our Major Brother farewell the night before he goes to Afghanistan, leaving his wife and two children at home in Hawaii for six months. We'll be able to do the Skype when he is in Afghanistan, and in this sense, it will be comforting to feel that the world is small.

Times, they are changing. Nations trying to fight wars with terrorists, like a fist trying to punch an idea. I don't understand our strategy in Afghanistan, mostly because I don't see the benefit of an endless occupation. Afghanistan is a gorgeous country, and is undoubtedly worth saving, but is that what we're doing there? In the 90's, I received letters from Amnesty International asking me to urge our politicians to take a stand on the treatment of women, saying that Afghani women used to be professors and lawyers, but they were being brutalized by the fundamentalist Taliban. This was ongoing for 20 years before 9-11, well before we were sold the war in Iraq partially because of their treatment of women. Skepticism of war policy is my nature and remains so even my with my big brother headed over there.

This is me trying to make sense of a new foreign policy. Struggling.

I know that the US has real and powerful enemies, and I understand that it is the job of the military to stay vigilant. I've learned about the Clash of Civilizations, and that our civilization, despite what our voting demographics or protest placards tell you, stands in favor of free speech, free press, civil liberties, freedom of and from (!) religion, free enterprise, equal rights, etc. ( I feel silly writing this, because as I do, I can think of a million ways in which our freedoms have been violated.) I'm not addressing individual motions or events. I mean, in general, these things are valued in our civilization, so much that for some people, they are deemed self-evident truths. But it's a mistake and simply incorrect to think that they are basic principles for all of humanity. Some civilizations do not value these things, and this is where the CLASH part comes in.

Our world is getting smaller, and the notion of "live and let live" seems to be unrealistic and maybe as immoral as cultural relativism.

One more plea: Maybe we need to slow down. Maybe we need to allow civilizations to merge, to educate each other, to show each other the benefits of different ways of doing things. Maybe, just maybe, we can slow this clash down, and as confusing as life can be, we can always invest in what we know is good, what's important to us- family, community, environment, good will, charitable acts, education, health, personal peace, expression of ideas... Is there any chance that our very real, very powerful, imperfect enemies would do the same? While I'm here, my brother is at war, and all I can do is live a life rooted in these principles.

DISCLAIMER: This is what I'm thinking now. I reserve the right to change my mind at any time, I just know it's not as simple as I thought things were when I was 19. I'll freely challenge all of these thoughts, until I feel as though I've grasped some larger truth. I only have very small truths right now, one of which is that I love my brother with all my heart, that I support him in every breath that he takes, where ever he takes it, that I have deeply mixed feelings about where he's going, I feel one way only about him.