Gently Weeping

Spare a thought for my good US blogging buddy Winter Patriot, whose wife's best friend has just been murdered.

Like WP says, multiply by a million all the grief and agony his family and friends are experiencing right now, and you start to get some idea of what we have done in Iraq.

WP's latest post got me looking back at this old post of his. If you thought 9/11 was traumatic, imagine how much more traumatic it was to people who had some idea of what was really going down. I don't know what miniscule percentage of US TV viewers immediately connected thoughts of Osama Bin Laden and US government "black ops" when they saw those planes hit the WTC, but WP was one of them:

Late on the night of 9/11, there were huge vigils in Manhattan. People had brought pictures of their lost loved ones, whom they called 'missing'. There were flowers and candles all over the place, people sitting quietly holding hands or just staring into the tiny flames of the candles. It was a heartbreaking scene, repeated over and over all over lower Manhattan. At many points it was too painful to watch.

But at one point when I was watching, the TV camera found and zoomed in on something that looked very out of place. There amid the flowers and the candles, among all the weeping silent people, there was a hand-painted sign, which, if I remember correctly, said "President Bush: Bomb Afghanistan Tonight". Ever since that night, I have wondered who painted that sign, who planted it in the midst of those grieving people, and who pointed it out to the TV cameraman.

I didn't sleep that night. I didn't sleep much for the next week or two. Maybe it was a month; I can't really remember. But it doesn't make any difference...

Who brought all this pain upon us?

WP is an Internet Legend, and I am honoured to have him as a regular reader here. In fact, I probably would not even be blogging any more if not for his constant support and enthusiasm. He is a good man who bleeds tears for all the twisted horrors that others prefer to ignore, and the last thing he deserves in his life is more sorrow and pain.

Please spare a thought, and a prayer if you believe in them, for WP and his loved ones.