Stones Cry Out

I so agree... we need to be more prepared than we realize. Hubby and I have just bought a house and we are dedicating space to store rations, and be able to keep our house self sufficient. What would happen to most people if the power grid went down? No water (needed for pumping stations), no heat... etc... we bought a house with a woodburning fireplace, will be installing a cistern and will have a whole house generator that burns mulitple fuels, including alcohol that we can produce ourselves with a still if needed. Most people don't have the knowledge to do this and I think its important we prepare. We need to pray for an awakening because God is calling us and drawing us in for more than one reason. We need to warfare and stop with the church division. We will need to depend upon each other in the future and not war against each other.

Yeah, that's not at all what I meant.

I think Matthew is saying, not only do we need to pray, but as those prayers give us strength and widsom, we must take some sort of action against these threats. We need not be so passive. Is this what you are getting at Matthew?

If you really believe this is World War IV, then why are you still here in the rear with the gear and the cold beer? There are plenty of billets in theater for practically all ages, genders, levels of physical fitness and tolerance for risk, if not on the U.S. Treasury payroll, then on the payroll of one of its many civilian contractors.

Yes, Lori, that is exactly what I am saying.

Matt writes: "Yes, Lori, that is exactly what I am saying."

It would help if, by agreeing that "we need not be so passive," you communicated more clearly what sort of action you think should be taken.

The truth is: the WarOnTerror™ is a complete myth.

Don't believe me. Believe the professionals in the Pentagon.

“The misguided game in town is: ‘Give me the programmatics, show where the money is going and that will tell me where the department is going,’” the senior defense official said. “I think that would be a misreading of what’s happened, because what the QDR did was to get us to start to work differently, in a much more collaborative, horizontal fashion.

....“A refined force planning construct...implies the previous force planning construct is about right. I think the programming that’s occurred to date, too, is about right. And what we’re seeing here are refinements of that.”

“That’s not to say there’s not some changes in there,” the military official acknowledged. “But the [services] were on a pretty good vector and the QDR helped make some adjustments to those vectors. That’s why there’s not going to be [any major weapon system terminations].”
Apparently, 9/11 changed nothing. But do we ever hear any criticism from Stones Cry Out about how the Defense Department is approaching what you insist should be called a war? No. We don't. Why is that?

This is not WWIV. Fear is being used as a cudgel to smash opposition to policies that would not otherwise be tolerated. Bush violated the law when he bypassed FISA. Bush violated our values and perhaps the law when his administration denied prisoners legal rights. And his administration had to redefine torture to get around the laws preventing its use on prisoners. My relatives didn't fight for our laws and liberties to have them tossed out the window because of 19 guys with box-cutters. Yes, 9/11 was a tragedy. But this country prevailed in far more dire situations than we face now. So suck it up. And demand accountability from your government.

Also demand sanity in our foreign policy. Can we not agree that playing whack-a-mole with people who hate us will lead to more people who hate us? Evidence of this abounds already. I'm willing to overlook the absence of flowers Cheney said we would be greeted with in Iraq. But where is the domino effect we were promised? Instead of democracies springing up in the wake of the invasion of Iraq, extremists have made large gains in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Palestine, in some cases by democratic means. In South America, Morales and Chavez have been elected heads of state by riding on anti-American hatred that, as in the Middle East, did not exist in any way remotely like it does today. I know. Shortly before Bush was elected, I hosteled through 4 Muslim countries. Nobody showed any animosity toward me. I wouldn't take those same trips today.

If you are afraid for your future then do something to prevent your fears from being realized. Fighting poverty and despair will reduce the underlying causes of violent extremism far better than the rediculous notion of "unremitting combat". Urge your government to pursue the former, not the latter. Anything else is action born of fear or hatred.