Unclear Road

It was T-shirt weather on Sunday. The church had a barbecue to kick off the school year, and we enjoyed the sun for a few minutes until the heat chased us indoors. The grills were trucked in by one of the parishioners. He hitched the equipment to his pickup and brought the apparatus through the back gate. Although he’s half my age, he’s much handier with tools than I am (my wife would say that’s not a particularly high standard) and a hit with the ladies. In these parts lawyers and engineers are a dime a dozen; plumbers, landscapers, and car repair guys are the real chick magnets.

I scheduled a meeting which convened after the barbecue. It was one of those meetings where everyone wished they were somewhere else, not indoors going over the minutiae of some upcoming events. In my youth I laughed at the silly ancients who argued over how many angels danced on the head of a pin. Now I laugh because I recognize myself.

At 2 o’clock we headed up to the City, and the warm Peninsula sunshine lulled me into forgetting to bring a jacket. In the Bay Area climates—the voguish term is micro-climates—vary widely. The fog enveloped us north of Daly City, and I had to remove my sunglasses and turn on the headlights. After parking the car, I strode briskly to keep warm. We stopped for an early dinner at a noodle joint, and I took the slow way south along Skyline Boulevard.

Yesterday, of course, was the fifth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. 9/11 set in motion a chain of events whose outcome is far from clear. Even five years later, the country is divided about what it should do. Concerning Iraq, should we pull out and cut our losses, dooming the nascent democracy and creating a (worse) breeding ground for terrorists? Or should we put in more troops, likely resulting in more violence and increasing their dependency on America? Or should we stay the course, which may be the least bad alternative but is singularly unsatisfying?

The choices regarding Iran are worse: the Iranians appear dead set on acquiring nuclear weapons and do not appear reluctant to use them, at which point Israel will be in mortal peril. But an invasion and occupation of Iran raises a host of problems that will make Iraq seem like a picnic.

And always, in the back of our minds, is the “unthinkable” option of unleashing the full power of America’s military might, which will guarantee our physical safety at the price of our soul.

[Update - Victor Davis Hanson has the perfect phrase for this line of thinking: More rubble, less trouble. ]

Thank goodness I don’t have to make those decisions. Let us pray that our leadership and its opponents (who may assume the leadership sometime in the near future) have the wisdom and courage to guide us through the fog. © 2006 Stephen Yuen

Off Skyline Blvd. in Daly City on a Sunday afternoon in September.