Covid - The World At War
Last edited Sat May 15, 2021, 02:50 PM - Edit history (1)
THE WORLD AT WAR
By Al Garcia
I do not know the exact time or date that the first strike occurred or when the first barrage of deadly salvos were fired, or how. I do not know the name of the first casualty of the war, nor the place where they are interred, or who they left behind.
That is the horror of war – too quickly forgetting the names, the faces, the places of the fatalities, and of the aggrieved families and friends -- casualties forever affected and wounded. All that one ever remembers about war are the numbers -- increasing and ever-changing. Emotionless, cold numbers. And, of course, we have the certainty of a cold stone monument being erected in remembrance and reassurance of the supremacy of one over the other, when this war is over. Governments always seem to have time, money and people to plan and to handle such frivolities.
Wars are all the same -- an exercise in chaotic confusion, bewilderment, uncertainty, high anxiety and uneasiness. Usually confined to a designated expanse of territory or region, the vulgarity of war is usually well-defined, outlined and fought with designated rules of play. The cruelty, indecency or callousness of annihilating or obliterating human life, is left to the imagination and depravity of each participant.
On this 15th day of May, in the year 2021, we find ourselves still enmeshed in a war that has had no boundaries, no barriers, no designated regions or territories. It is a world war of epic proportions and dimensions. It is a war that has conscripted the entirety of the human race – raw, unarmed and untested individuals of every race, of every age, of every physicality – strong, weak, disabled, mentally or physically challenged, or newly born.
The days becoming weeks, and the weeks becoming months. And the enemy advances, while the absurdity of the cause and the solution continues to confound and stun the isolated and perplexed combatants across the globe. Even with the magic bullet at hand, the only defense in too many battlegrounds is still to “shelter in place” and “social distancing,” like the childish game of ducking under a desk in case of an atomic bomb. Well, we’ve been ducking, and it still killed hundreds of thousands just here in the United States, a sign that nothing was really working. The war continues still. Casualties declining, and the fear and dread subsiding with the introduction of vaccines, but nonetheless, the war, the casualties, the fear, still persists.
Wars are usually fought with well-stocked munitions and well-planned policies, plans and strategies to route the enemy and achieve a victory, however great or small, to help raise the confidence and the morale of those fighting on the front lines.
This war was, and still is, unlike other wars the world has known and fought. In this war, one side – our side – is just now getting the munitions to help defend itself after over a year of nonstop bombardment and millions of casualties around the world. We had no generals, until just recently, to seize command or control of the situation. We had no special forces, until Biden came into office, other than the brave men and women in our hospitals, nursing homes, fire and police departments, and laboratories across the world, all ill-equipped and struggling to stay alive in the middle of the enemy’s encampment.
And through the haze and maze of confusion and diffusion of conflicting information and disinformation by competing voices emanating from 151 or so governments around the world, and from a multitude of sometimes ill-informed, and too often confused local and regional authorities, including our very own leadership, only one solid thing emerged during this pandemic. That one thing was that there was no one in charge. No high command or five-star general to oversee the battles across the globe. No plan, except for daily changing strategies dictated by the advancing enemy and the casualties left behind.
Even conscripted soldiers like us could see the incompetency and apparent corruption and egotism at the very top that was bungling and mismanaging the course of the war. For far too long we seem to be simply following the enemy and picking up our wounded and our dead, instead of spearheading an advance here at home and across the globe to gather our best and our brightest minds and technicians in an effort to meet the enemy head-on and end this unsustainable war.
Too many have already suffered. Too many have already paid the ultimate price. And too many are grieving alone at this very moment, for parents, for brothers, for sisters, for husbands and wives, for sons and for daughters, and for friends and strangers, who died alone because no one took responsibility for ensuring our security and our safety.
And we waited, for the daily changing war plans to be announced. Always after the fact. Always after another skirmish or battle was lost. Always deflecting, never accepting responsibility or accountability.
The world at war – and we were left to fend for ourselves – without ammunition, without protective equipment, without a leader to lead the world, and without hope that things would change. All because of egos, greed, deceit, and incompetence – all while we watched the world burn on battlefields that were once our homes, our towns and our cities.
And now, as America once again begins to take charge and lead the world, we take a breath as the rays of light begin to infiltrate the darkness of our battlefields across main streets from sea to shining sea.
American leadership is regaining its strength and its valor. Unfortunately, too late for many innocent bystanders. Nature’s fury found, overwhelmed, and overpowered the hypocrisy, arrogance and incompetency that was supposed to support and protect us. Now, that same group of inept and bungling nit wicks are attempting to erase four years of ineptitude, and endeavoring to rebury in unmarked graves over 585,000 casualties of a war that they lost.
