Don't Close Your Blinds- Great Story

[Tatmtt2120]

A great story, a little violent.

Don't Close Your Blinds

The other day, my nine year old son wanted to know why we were at war. My husband looked at our son and then looked at me. My husband and I were in the Army during the Gulf War and we would be honored to serve and defend our Country again today. I knew that my husband would give him a good explanation.

My husband thought for a few minutes and then told my son to go stand in our front living room window. He told him: "Son, stand there and tell me what you see?"

"I see trees and cars and our neighbor's houses." he replied.

"OK, now I want you to pretend that our house and our yard is the United States of America and you are President Bush."

Our son giggled and said "OK."

"Now son, I want you to look out the window and pretend that every house and yard on this block is a different country" my husband said.

"OK Dad, I'm pretending."

"Now I want you to stand there and look out the window and see that man come out of his house with his wife and he has her by the hair and is hitting her.
You see her bleeding and crying. He hits her in the face, he throws her on the ground, then he starts to kick her to death. Their children run out and are afraid to stop him, they are crying, they are watching this but do nothing because they are kids and afraid of their father.
You see all of this son.... what do you do?"

"Dad?"

"What do you do son?"

"I call the police, Dad."

"OK. Pretend that the police are the United Nations and they take your call, listen to what you know and saw but they refuse to help. What do you do then son?"

"Dad, but the police are supposed to help!" My son starts to whine.

"They don't want to son, because they say that it is not their place or your place to get involved and that you should stay out of it," my husband says

"But Dad...he killed her!!" my son exclaims.

"I know he did...but the police tell you to stay out of it. Now I want you to look out that window and pretend you see our neighbor who you're pretending is Saddam turn around and do the same thing to his children."

"Daddy...he kills them?"

"Yes son, he does. What do you do?"

"Well, if the police don't want to help, I will go and ask my next door neighbor to help me stop him." our son says.

"Son, our next door neighbor sees what is happening and refuses to get involved as well. He refuses to open the door and help you stop him," my husband says.

"But Dad, I NEED help!!! I can't stop him by myself!!"

"WHAT DO YOU DO SON?" Our son starts to cry.

"OK, no one wants to help you, the man across the street saw you ask for help and saw that no one would help you stop him. He stands taller and puffs out his chest. Guess what he does next son?" "What Daddy?"

"He walks across the street to the old ladies house and breaks down her door and drags her out, steals all her stuff and sets her house on fire and then...he kills her. He turns around and sees you standing in he window and laughs at you. WHAT DO YOU DO?"

"Daddy..."

"WHAT DO YOU DO?"

Our son is crying and he looks down and he whispers, "I close the blinds, Daddy."

My husband looks at our son with tears in his eyes and asks him... "Why?"

"Because Daddy.....the police are supposed to help...people who needs it...and they won't help....You always say that neighbors are supposed to HELP neighbors, but they won't help either...they won't help me stop him...I'm afraid....I can't do it by myself ...Daddy.....I can't look out my window and just watch him do all these terrible things and...and.....do nothing...so....I'm just going to close the blinds....so I can't see what he's doing........and I'm going to pretend that it is not happening."

I start to cry.

My husband looks at our nine year old son standing in the window, looking pitiful and ashamed at his answers to my husbands questions and he tells him..."Son"

"Yes, Daddy."

"Open the blinds because that man.... he's at your front door..."WHAT DO YOU DO?"

My son looks at his father, anger and defiance in his eyes. He balls up his tiny fists and looks his father square in the eyes, without hesitation he says:
"I DEFEND MY FAMILY DAD!! I'M NOT GONNA LET HIM HURT MOMMY OR MY SISTER, DAD!!! I'M GONNA FIGHT HIM, DAD, I'M GONNA FIGHT HIM!!!!!"

I see a tear roll down my husband's cheek and he grabs my son to his chest and hugs him tight, and cries..."It's too late to fight him, he's too strong and he's already at YOUR front door son.....you should have stopped him BEFORE he killed his wife. You have to do what's right, even if you have to do it alone, before......it's too late." my husband whispers.

THAT scenario I just gave you is WHY we are at war with Iraq. When good men stand by and let evil happen is the greatest EVIL of all. Our President is doing what is right. We, as a free nation, must understand that this war is a war of humanity. WE must remove evil men from power so that we can continue to live in a free world where we are not afraid to look out our window. So that my nine year old son won't grow up in a world where he feels that if he just "closes" that blinds the atrocities in the world won't affect him. "YOU MUST NEVER BE AFRAID TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT! EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO DO IT ALONE!"
author unknown.

Also three great songs are in my uploads folder on the FTP. I'm a little patriotic, don't you think. :mrgreen:

[-=DoW=- JBDiamonds]

Tat:

Great story! It sends a great message....I do agree, howver:

I feel it would have been better had we continued after Osama first? Sadam has been behaving like you describe for years, and you are right we did nothing. So why now? How can we abandon hunting down the one directly responsible for 911? Sadam could have waited til after we got Osama, is all I am saying. We still don't have him, 3 years later, but we have Sadam.........

In Afghanistan we had the help of the northern tribes whom we trained. Why didn't we use that 87 million to train the Iragi's and invade with them as our allies? We wouldn't have been so hated.

Our administration has done a fine job in alienating some 19 muslin countries as well, and we still don't have a solution. Things are not getting better there, they are getting worse.

Dont get me wrong the story you wrote about has all the morality that should be addressed. I would have preferred it ended with us getting Osama first. We had no no plan for the peace either.

Osama is still free, planning. I believe he isn't finished. There were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq - it's obvious now that oil has motivated our actions and not humanity. I don't like being lied to, These lies and lack of forethought for a peace plan have resulted in the death's of too many of our brave young men. It's a crying shame.

JB

I can't trust our administration any longer.

[recon73]

I think you have been filled by crap from the liberal media JB. :2cents:


//edit//

Sorry JB, I don't mean for you to think I'm saying you're full of "it" (bad choice of words on my part) :P:

[Panda]

Sigh, talking about politics is like me ballroom dancing; I'm always stepping on toes (this is the case with most people, I think). So I'm gonna avoid all that and just say that the story was wonderful. As JB implied, it has a beautiful moral message and is honest and correct to the core.

[tyler_durden]

great message :shock:

[-=DoW=- Allessir]

I've seen articles where they (the iraqi military) BURIED an entire squadron of Mig 25's. How do you detect weapons BURIED in a country covered in SAND? While I'm not saying they exist or don't. Just stand back and think for a sec. you have to find that quarter buried in the sand....on a beach that is thousands of miles long. This is one of the reasons I don't watch the news. In my mind it's nothing but propaganda for the masses. You all know you can't trust ANY politician bout as far as you can throw a Semi truck. I will say atleast Bush is trying to do something. Better then what happaned at the Marine barracks in Lebanon.

[-=DoW=- JBDiamonds]

Recon:

I take no offense. I know you would never get personal like that. Your opinion is your opinion even as misguided as you are.

Yeah Presient Bush is trying to do something alright, he has:

1: Encouraged outsourcing of jobs
2: Included private school vouchers in his education proposal
3: Failed to fund sxhool repair and modernization
4: Promoted the "No Child Left Behind" Act and then left schools in the lurch by not funding the bill.
5: Implemented massice tax cuts that benefit the wealthy, and that helped convert the federal reserve budget surplus Cllinton left into crippling deficits.
6: Advanced a Medicare prescription drug program that prohibits importation of cheaper Canadian drugs and forbids government bargaining for lower cost proces.
7: Is seeking, according to the Wall Street Journal and the NY Times, to privatize Social Security.

Yeah President Bush is doing something.


Yet I am saddened that all we have opposing him is Senator Kerry who has in 19 years acted to thwart these anti-public education and anti-labor assaults.

His plan is:

1: Fully fund and fix "No Child Left Behind".
2: Increase funding for IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act).
3: Oppose tax funded private school vouchers.
4: Support programs to underwrite schoolconstruction, reduce class size, improve professional development and recruit and retain teachers.
5: Simplify the process for workers to form a union.
6: Guarantee union rights for employees in the Department of Homeland Security.
7: Prohibit mandatory unpaid overtime and increase trhe minimum wage.
8: Continue tax relief for the middle clas families.
9: Health coverage for children and low income adults.
10: Strengthen Social Security and Medicare: fighting efforts to privatize these and promote programs that lower prescription drug cost.


The Bush Administration has misled the American people with false promises in "No Child Left Behind," in Medicare reform, in tax policy, and notably in the basic premises for preemptive war with Iraq. In Iraq there has been a failure to adequately plan for an exit strategy, putting brave military and civilian personnel at risk and draining resources needed for a smart defense policy and for social services.

A President can't do everything, but when it come to education, labor, healthcare, human rights, John Kerry has been a true advocate for working and middle class Americans.

I don't know if he WILL accomplish any of what his platform stands for but I feel he has a plan to protect us against terrorism and to promote the wellbeing of this country's citizens.

I am saddened that this is all we have to choose from. I do not trust President Bush and yet, I do have reservations about Senator Kerry. Can I trust Him? Don't know, but I am hopeful.

[-=DoW=- MrTank187]

Good story Tat!!!

[Tatmtt2120]

First let me say, I didn't intend for this to be a political bashing type of post on who's better than who. Its just a very interesting story I found yesterday, that I did not write and I wanted to share with everyone. Now let me reply to a few things here.


I feel it would have been better had we continued after Osama first? Sadam has been behaving like you describe for years, and you are right we did nothing. So why now? How can we abandon hunting down the one directly responsible for 911? Sadam could have waited til after we got Osama, is all I am saying. We still don't have him, 3 years later, but we have Sadam.........

In Afghanistan we had the help of the northern tribes whom we trained. Why didn't we use that 87 million to train the Iragi's and invade with them as our allies? We wouldn't have been so hated.

I worked the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. I sat through hundreds of U-2 (yes, the spy plane) intelligence missions during Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. I was at the controls of the U-2 sensors during Operation Anaconda and the other operations in and around around Tora Bora and all over Afghanistan and Iraqi. Let me tell you, its not as easy to find him as it appears. A lot of people do not know the restrictions that have been placed on our military when it comes to searching for him. Pakistan WILL NOT let us search for him in Pakistan. We can not fly over, collect intelligence or have troops anywhere near the border with Pakistan. Our special ops troops on the ground must stay in the Afghan side and they are VERY limited on what they can and cannot do, where they go, who they talk to. The Northern tribe folks, will follow who ever pays them the most on that particular day. I remember seeing many news reports from reporters in the field from Afghanistan, who paid for a driver to take them around then get stranded on the side of the road because their driver got a better offer from someone else. A lot of the northern tribe folks are also supporters of the Taliban. They intially says they are against the Taliban, we train them, 2 months later we find out they lied and are actually helping the Talbian. They won't turn the Taliban in or tell us where they are. It turns out, most of them are in the mountainous regions of Pakistan, which again, we cannot search. Pakistan will only let the US military use a small 20 mile wide and 150 mile long stretch of airspace from the ocean to the Afghanistan border, and guess what, its along the Iranian border. 500-600 miles away from where we want to fly to search for Osama. This airspace can only be used to get to and from Afghanistan, nothing else.

I agree we need to search a hell of a lot harder for Osama, the problem is we can't. The other countries around Afghanistan will not let us. Its not the Bush administration turning their head and forgetting about him. Its because they done as much as they can with what they got to work with. If Pakistan would let us in, I have not doubt we find him very quickly. The biggest thing that distrubs me is, we probably will never find him because of the restrictions and the extremely limited options placed on US military. Saddam was an easy find.


Osama is still free, planning. I believe he isn't finished. There were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq - it's obvious now that oil has motivated our actions and not humanity. I don't like being lied to, These lies and lack of forethought for a peace plan have resulted in the death's of too many of our brave young men. It's a crying shame.
I can't trust our administration any longer.

I do not buy this oil was the reason we went into Iraq. Go back to the 80 and 90's. Everyone in the world knows he had WMD back then. The UN had inpectors get thrown out of Iraq by Saddam. They tagged thousands of items used to make WMD, dispense WMD and WMD itself (mustard gas, etc. no nukes, but the equipment to start making them was found). The problem is, how do you get rid of all this stuff in a matter of months before a war. Where did it go? Where is it now? Everyone nows he had it at one point, but what did he do with it. Did you see this report that came out a few days ago.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/26/iraq.explosives/index.html
Where did this stuff go, it didn't disappear overnight. This is not first time stuff has gone missing. There thousands of items missing. Bush, and don't forget Tony Blair, acted on the intelligence they were given to them by the CIA, FBI, etc. As it turns out, the intelligence was incorrect in some ways but not all. Bush and Blair didn't collect the intelligence, they only acted on it, trusting that it was reliable and accurate. Blame the CIA, FBI, etc. for that, do not blame Bush and Blair. Take our screeshots from our JRTC Farm raid server. If you weren't told differently, you'd assumes the pb screenshots with the green ground was a hack. We banned those folks because we trusted that punkbuster was providing accurate screenshots. It wasn't until after the fact we were informed this was actually a bug with punkbuster. This is similar to the way Bush and Blair acted, but on a way BIGGER scale.

I've seen articles where they (the iraqi military) BURIED an entire squadron of Mig 25's. How do you detect weapons BURIED in a country covered in SAND? While I'm not saying they exist or don't. Just stand back and think for a sec. you have to find that quarter buried in the sand....on a beach that is thousands of miles long.

This is 100% true, I have an actually powerpoint slide of this somewhere, if I can find it I will post it. It shows a mig buried in a 25 foot tall sand dune. Who knows what else is buried there?

Recon:

I take no offense. I know you would never get personal like that. Your opinion is your opinion even as misguided as you are.

In Iraq there has been a failure to adequately plan for an exit strategy, putting brave military and civilian personnel at risk and draining resources needed for a smart defense policy and for social services.


Kerry doesn't have an exit strategy either. He thinks its going to be so easy to call up other nations for help. One problem, no one will. With all the crap Bush has taken over the last year, don't you think he called up a few nations to try to help. Kerry once said he would have our troops out in 6 months. WRONG, DEAD WRONG. Its a mess over there, and it won't be cleaned up in 6 months so we can leave. I want to see what the hell Kerry has in mind to get us out in 6 months. You never tell the enemy when you are leaving or what your plans are. They just wait till we leave. You think its bad now, see what happens if we do what Kerry says and just leave in 6 months.

[hampton_77]

well said TaTmttt. :banger:

[-=DoW=- mark 3031]

Why do democrats always say that we aren't hunting for Bin Lauden?

I think that Iraq is a perfect place to fight terrorists. Look at where it is... Smack dab in the middle of every terrorist state in the world, and they hate it. We sent our TRAINED military to fight them in their backyard and PICKED a fight. I say kill them there instead of of them killing my family here. Bin Lauden's supporters are pouring into Iraq.

as for The alienated muslim countries: Most of our muslim "alies" had folks come over here and blow up 2 towers.... I think you can find some pictures on the internet about it, if you forgot. They also give billions of dollars a year to help them do it again... and they are scared of Bush. He said "you are with us or against us" and we will hold the country accountable for supporting terrorrist. They are extremely scared and can't do anything but show all the negative actions going on there, in hopes of getting Bush out of the White House.

Kerry would be the choice of those terrorist countries... they love the FACT that he turned his back on every military member that served in Vietnam. Yes, he did, Now he wants to lead them.... ironic isn't it.

The arguement that he couldn't do anything is total bull. He was an officer in time of war. If he couldn't control his troops then, how can we expect him to lead us now? He also has a right to shoot anybody that commits the crimes he complained about.

They knew that social security was gonna die about 30 years ago, after the baby boom. It's just funny that it is now a huge issue that is getting blamed on Bush.

Health care is probably the only arguement that Democrats have. Kerry's plan won't work though, it looks like he just jumped on the first idea that came into his head. I really wouldn't want to get deathly ill on my healthcare ( the one that Kerry is proposing to you)

[Tatmtt2120]

I say kill them there instead of of them killing my family here.

He said "you are with us or against us" and we will hold the country accountable for supporting terrorrist.

HELL YA. Well said :banger:

[Tatmtt2120]

Bump:
I've seen articles where they (the iraqi military) BURIED an entire squadron of Mig 25's. How do you detect weapons BURIED in a country covered in SAND?

I have added the powerpoint presentation to my uploads folder on the ftp. Take a look. If anyone knows how to get break the slides out individually that would be great so we can post them here, as for now its a slideshow only. I don't know how to stop the automatic slideshow and just look a each slide seperately.

[-=DoW=- Cletus]

... Bush, and don't forget Tony Blair, acted on the intelligence they were given to them by the CIA, FBI, etc. As it turns out, the intelligence was incorrect in some ways but not all. Bush and Blair didn't collect the intelligence, they only acted on it, trusting that it was reliable and accurate. ....

Not a justification, but when the roles were reversed the opposition did exactly the same thing, accused the President of alterior motives for acting on intel these same communities provided.

supporting:
(Statements on August 20 actions in Afghanistan, Sudan) 1998 (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/930723/posts)


detractors can be found googling 'wagging the dog', or 'aspirin factory'

[CrazySnyper]

Its an interesting story. Personally I supported taking action against Iraq. As yet we have not found Bush's supposed giant "stockpiles" of wmds, however its not true that we havent found any. Back in 2004 (or was it 2003?) some terrorists rigged an artillery shell up as a roadside bomb. What they evidently didnt know was that it was actually filled with Sarin nerve gas. It didnt work the way it was supposed to, and didnt kill anyone I dont think, but it did land some of our guys in the hospital.

Then there was http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/26/jordan.terror/
That seems to just be a preliminary story, but basically Al Quaeda guys in Jordan who were working under that Al Zarqawi guy (the same guy who was Al Qaeda's sort of "Ambassador" to to Iraq) were given a whole bunch of nerve gasses and told to set them off in Jordan. Estimated deaths were somewhere in the hundreds of thousands.

Also at the time we went in German, Russian, and French (yeah your heard me) intelligence all indicated that Saddam had WMD programs. They didnt deny that, they just didnt believe that he was enough of a threat to justify an invasion.

Basically my point is that some action needed to be taken based on the information available. I dont know that we really took the right action.

For example take that story. What should the kid have done? He shoulda got the .308 outa the closet and fixed things up nice. Maybe we shoulda done the same thing to Saddam?