Rambling with Words

Journal Index

Previous     Next

Tuesday, March 30, 1999

Walked - 2 miles

I really wonder if part of the reason I feel down is because of the fighting in Kosovo. I've noticed that the last few days I tend to avoid the news channels even though I usually keep CNN on as background noise. I am so ambivalent about the whole thing.

Yes, we do need to help people who are being murdered. No we should not intervene in another countries internal affairs. Yes, the world community does have an obligation to stop genocide. But there are many other places where worse killings and murders and genocide are going on. We should help people who are being driven from their homes and shot. People in Yugoslavia have been fighting each other for six hundred years, do we really believe we can stop them now? Even if we can't stop them, shouldn't we try? Is it really worth losing American lives for a fight that we can't really win and that isn't really our fight? Isn't fighting for decent human treatment always our fight?

Even this evening, I can't really face the news. I don't want to say we shouldn't help people but at the same time I don't know this is the fight we should pick. I guess at the time most wars don't seem as black and white as we try to make them once they are past. Where do we draw the line? Where do we make a stand?

I have the same problem with Amnesty International. When I was a member I hated opening mail from them as I knew there would be someone else who was hurt or tortured or killed or imprisoned in horrible conditions. I think that what Amnesty is doing is what needs to be done but it's so hard to read about it. Maybe I could just pay the membership fee and not read the mail? Nah! Then I would feel like I was copping out.

Why can't people just be nice to each other? Yeah, yeah. I know. Life's a bitch, but damn, we don't have to like it. Why does knowing people are being hurt, hurt me so much? I'm not the one being hurt? I would make a really lousy general, wouldn't I?

Previous     Next

©Rachel Aschmann 1999.
Contents may not be reproduced without permission.