by James Glaser
March 21, 2003

It doesn't matter where you turn, there is the war. Every TV station, the radio, people at the cafe and hardware store are all talking about the war. All day long there was talk that the first shots fired took out Saddam. There were claims that the man on television last night was one of his doubles. The local Minneapolis station had a man on that said he knew Saddam and that was not him. Well just a few minutes ago they announced that after voice testing and measuring the size of this guys nose and the width of his eyes, it was Saddam. They said maybe the fact that Saddam is sixty five years old, it was the middle of the night and a bad night too, and the fact he had no makeup on for the cameras made him look different.

I hate to say it, but I feel like Dan Rather and all the other announcers would be tickled pink if we could have a real pitched battle for them to report on. They even stooped so low as to have one reporter give his whole report in a "gas mask." It looked screwy though when people in the background did not have them on.

I went to town and everyone was talking about the war. I went to the VFW and did some reports and none of the veterans there were talking about it until just before I was going to leave. We all decided that the whole thing had to do with money. Without oil under their feet, America would never have even thought of Liberating the Iraqi people. Can you even imagine how many billions of people in this world need liberation as much or more so than the people of Iraq? If they have oil or some way we can make money off their country, they have a chance of getting our help. If they are dirt poor and suffering as slaves, they will die as slaves. America might protect the innocent, but that protection is not free.

Well this is Friday and after writing about George Bush all week I have been looking forward to writing about something clean. All the snow is gone, but out on the lake it just melted and as it starts to get cold again that lake will be a sheet of ice. The ice is still about 36 inches thick.

Last fall I did a real good yard clean up, but with all the snow gone you can see branches all over on the ground, a few pieces of paper, and lots of leaves. Worse than that are all the projects that I abandoned last fall because it got too cold. My boat house on the hill is still there, so I went down to it today, swept off all the leaves, and measured for the rafters I never finished last fall. I like this project. Everything is small enough that I don't need any help. It is for me and that lets me build it anyway I want. Also it is totally quiet and after I cleaned up the place and had measured everything that I wanted to, I sat down and said a prayer

I prayed for the safe return of all of our troops and for their families too. Then I said a prayer for the people of Iraq. With the start of bombing, even without killing anyone, I know that damage is being done to the Iraqi children. I prayed for those scared little children, who have no idea why America wants to kill them or their parents.

When I got back up to the house I sat out on the deck for a while because these are our first warm or kind of warm or I should say not bitter cold days this year. As I sat there my thoughts went to the war, like just about everyone else in America and I started to think what this is all about. It boils down to a fight between George Bush and Saddam Hussein. Neither man has ever seen the other in person. The two of them, from all reports have never even spoken to each other on the phone. I have never heard Saddam speak, but from George Bush's words I can tell he hates Saddam. What is real justice, is that these two men will have all eternity in Hell to argue about who was right and who was wrong. Two men lusting for power and neither of them cares the least for the children they are destroying. I am sure God will not waste many words on them as he turns each of them away.