A prayer for service men and women, their families, and our leaders to find the wisdom thru this.

TV news overage, portrays war like a spectator sport. Can’t stand it. Newspapers and websites seem to be the only place to go.

Speaking of newspapers, Philly.com‘s is among the best. I work for the company and yes I’m biased. But it’s good to see breaking news beyond the expected Reuters and AP.

Kevin Sites is very close to what’s going on. Possibly why he hasn’t updated his weblog since Tuesday.

Wbur.org’s weblog on Iraq is impressive.

The Rational Enquirer is pulling links from around the web.

WashingtonPost: Putting Patriotism to the Test:

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
Theodore Roosevelt, 1918

SFGate: Family Portraits: A new generation for peace.

Times Shadow: Responsibility

So when the shooting starts and the terrible things happen, the burden is on us to keep faith with them, not to judge them, even if we couch our judgment in words like ?grieve.? Better one should grieve for oneself than presume to grieve for the moral failure of a soldier doing his or her duty, holding up their end of the bargain while we shirked ours. They will not fail in their military objective. Some few of them may fail in their duty as a soldier and as a human being, and commit acts not in accordance with the laws of war. Even then, the burden is on us to keep faith with them, because we placed them in those circumstances, through our own inaction and indifference. We keep faith with them by holding our tongues, and we forgive them, and we ask them to forgive us. We let them down first. Our institutions will hold them accountable. It?s hard to say if anyone will hold us accountable.

Thanks to Jonathon Delacour for the last one.