Wakey, Wakey

I've already posted this to Facebook, but this happened within 2 miles of where I live and work in Kabul.  My wife was understandably concerned, made sure to re-iterate to me that nothing can happen to me while I'm over here.  Not even a toenail.  Of course, my toenails being what they are, there's no reason why I can't afford to lose 1 or 2 and probably be better for it. 

So they had us locked down until noon today, which meant a half-day off to do whatever we could do in our rooms.  Which isn't much, surprisingly.  Oh, in case anyone reading this is wondering, where I am has much better security than the UN guesthouse.  We drive through that area now and then...this whole massive block is a mass of NGO (Non-Government Organization) compounds, and our security here, while not Ft. Knox, is quite a few steps above our UN peers. 

Apparently most of the people who were staying at that particular guesthouse were election officials getting ready for the runoff election coming up in November. 

Big surprise that the Taliban is trying to terrorize election officials and get the UN to leave in the same manner that blowing up UN HQ in Iraq got the UN to pull out of Iraq in 2003.  

It's...the UN.  They mean no harm.  And in this case, it wasn't just Americans being targeted.  It usually isn't when it's UN involvement.  

We find this hard to believe in the West, especially as Americans, but there are people in the world who would kill other people just because of an idea, of a birthplace, of what that birthplace represents.  The dichotomy is best captured by an unattributed statement by an Islamic cleric:  "We like your VCR's, but not the movies you make to play in them."  

The comedy act, Axis of Evil:  one of the comedians was talking about his Jordanian cousin, who hated America, but loved Snickers bars.  

What's this got to do with the UN?  The vote, the election, that which would move this country toward more democratic control and less tyranny on the part of the Taliban...that is the enemy.  Not the UN, not the US...it's the idea they bring, what that could mean to those who would keep this all to themselves.