silentcorner

Well, as everyone can see unless you’ve been living in a cave with no access to the outside world (in which case you obviously wouldn’t be reading my blog, now would you,) the war has begun, much to the dismay of my viewing, and subsequent missing the ending, of Angel last night as they cut to an announcement of the initial attack. (Couldn’t they wait???)

Seriously, though, as excitable as it can sometimes be, seeing bombs and missiles dropping in a land far far away from our cozy homes becomes a little scary if you sit down and think about it. Would we be so willing to go to war if Iraq were our neighbor? What about all the civilian casualties that will likely happen in Iraq itself, whether by our attacks, or by Saddam’s regime. The answer to the former is we probably would, because then the threat would be even closer to home. What the US is doing here is removing a proven threat to many countries, not just the US. It’d be nice to see other countries step up and support us. It seemed kind of “convenient” that Turkey suddenly opens up it’s airspace shortly after the US makes it’s first strike, not before, possibly in a move to reduce being accused as a “supporter” of starting the war.

Speaking of closer to home, security is definitely heightened here in Chicago, as well as my own obseveration of what’s going on around me. On my walk from the El to the office, I spotted about 4 fire trucks on Franklin, so I decided to take a detour and see what was going on. Turned out to be a crane turned over at a construction site with the operator caught underneath (they seemed to get him out ok, and he went to the hospital.) During lunch I saw another group of fire engines racing across the city to some unknown location. How much of this is unusual compared to just my increased awareness, who knows?

Police presence has raised considerably. I took a walk during lunch and indeed the more significant buildings have heavy police presence, including the Mercantile Exchange, Chicago Board of Trade, Sears Tower, Federal Reserve Bank, the Federal Building, and most other government buildings from what I saw as I walked past them. The Federal Building also had a contingent of high school students who walked out of class to do a war protest.

But we are now at war with an enemy who has shown before that he has no issues with fighting dirty. Let’s just hope our operation is swift and precise, so that we can end this soon, and get back to building communities rather than destroying.