A JOURNEY

Coming very soon: Target: Kuwait.

I was driving back from northern Virginia, clueless. To my right (southeast?) was the Pentagon. I saw a huge crowd there, in the parking lot. A helicopter hovered above. I drove on. Walking away was an endless queue of people with anti-war signs.

My heart began to palpitate. Where was I?

As I exited onto the ramp that led to the entrance to Arlington Cemetery, I saw more protesters, most heading to the cemetery, some away towards Memorial Bridge. I stopped to let them cross, and I didn’t want to move on. I froze. There were people of all ages. I saw couples with their children, a good number. I saw old people. I saw an old couple in their mid-eighties--must've been--braving the cold wind.

It’s happening. We’re getting out. Notwithstanding the Israeli Prime Minister’s recent self-serving warnings that our beloved Jordanian government--a base for the harmful idiots--would fall should we withdraw from Iraq.

The Israelis, the Jewish Right, the Jewish liberals, and the Christian Right provided the public cover for the oil administration to get us into one war; now they want to see us drain even more in blood and treasure. To dodge one Palestinian generation after another. To annihilate Lebanon. To wipe out any Arab with dignity and pride. To turn that region’s people into Uncle Toms, their countries into plantations. To dodge a Palestinian state.

To orphan yet more children.