{"id":558,"date":"2007-04-25T23:50:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-26T03:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/example.org\/another_poignan"},"modified":"2007-04-25T23:50:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-26T03:50:00","slug":"another_poignan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/?p=558","title":{"rendered":"Another poignant story from Michael Yon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Desires of the Human Heart<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Michaelyonphoto2\"<\/a>
\n In a Baghdad neighborhood where residents have been subject to methodical slaughter, the 1-4 Cavalry from Fort Riley, Kansas has found an abandoned Christian college<\/a> <\/a>to be an island in the storm.<\/p>\n

Michael captures the desolation and the toll of human life from the continuing civil war in words and photos that evoke the End of Days. <\/p>\n

\n

"Most of the families in the vicinity have fled. People are murdered nearby every day, and during just one of the days I was with 1-4 Cavalry, they reported finding three murder victims. The Iraqi police and our soldiers told me that murders are down since the security plan began, yet our people still found fourteen human bodies over the period of one week. The enemy kills entire families including small children."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

"The people who could leave have mostly gone. Many of the wealthy and the educated have abandoned Iraq. The lights rarely come on here."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And yet Michael writes, <\/p>\n

\n

"And on these empty streets, a practiced eye regards the slivers of hope that are strewn among all the chards of broken glass."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Whatever the result from this war, we are incredibly indebted to Michael Yon and the others who bring us the ground-level view of soldiers dealing with a disintegrating civilization<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Civilizations have fallen into barbarism in past ages and we have evidently not learned enough to prevent this from happening again.<\/p>\n

Perhaps we can learn from Michael’s observations and the observations
\nof others to avoid making similar mistakes in the future.  <\/p>\n

\nWe have all known individuals who were so self-destructive that they
\nwill use freely offered help to destroy themselves. Can we learn to
\nunderstand when a culture is so set on  destroying itself that our help
\nis going to cost us more then we can possibly save?  <\/p>\n

\nIraq is like a person with multiple personalities and not one of them
\nis strong enough to take charge. There is so much beauty, intelligence
\nand courage in Iraq that it is appalling to see how rampant insanity
\nhas disfigured and debased a once-beautiful country.<\/p>\n

\nWhat is more troubling is the growing realization that this insanity is
\ncontagious and it is beginning to affect our own emotional stability. I
\nfeel there are no easy answers and I’m not sure what questions make
\nsense right now. <\/p>\n

\nI do know that it is folly to pour resources in to an area of
\nconfusion, because the resources will be diverted or wasted. <\/p>\n

We saw
\nthis in New Orleans where money and help was wasted and is still being
\nwasted. When there is no stable government, there is no one to
\nrecognize aid and put it to intelligent use. <\/p>\n

Furthermore, when we try to prop up a government
\nthat is unable to create a consensus, we become the "government" and
\ninherit all of the problems with none of the connections that will
\nenable us to turn over the reins to duly constituted authority.<\/p>\n

\nIt may be that allowing Iraq to separate into homogeneous sections that
\nare capable of self-rule is the only way to extricate ourselves.<\/p>\n

\nRead Michael’s latest dispatch<\/a> and let me know what your thoughts are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Desires of the Human Heart<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Michaelyonphoto2\"<\/a>
\n In a Baghdad neighborhood where residents have been subject to methodical slaughter, the 1-4 Cavalry from Fort Riley, Kansas has found an abandoned Christian college<\/a> <\/a>to be an island in the storm.<\/p>\n

Michael captures the desolation and the toll of human life from the continuing civil war in words and photos that evoke the End of Days. <\/p>\n

\n

"Most of the families in the vicinity have fled. People are murdered nearby every day, and during just one of the days I was with 1-4 Cavalry, they reported finding three murder victims. The Iraqi police and our soldiers told me that murders are down since the security plan began, yet our people still found fourteen human bodies over the period of one week. The enemy kills entire families including small children."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

"The people who could leave have mostly gone. Many of the wealthy and the educated have abandoned Iraq. The lights rarely come on here."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And yet Michael writes, <\/p>\n

\n

"And on these empty streets, a practiced eye regards the slivers of hope that are strewn among all the chards of broken glass."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Whatever the result from this war, we are incredibly indebted to Michael Yon and the others who bring us the ground-level view of soldiers dealing with a disintegrating civilization<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Civilizations have fallen into barbarism in past ages and we have evidently not learned enough to prevent this from happening again.<\/p>\n

Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1826],"tags":[1567,1239,1568,1238,1566],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3R4iK-90","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}