Looking Back--U.S. Involvement in the Second Gulf War in 2003

This is a journal of mine that focuses of my reactions to the first day the U.S. got involved in the Second Gulf War...


What a disgrace! As soon as I saw the first live TV
pictures last night--hearing and seeing the
'crackle-crackle-
crackle' of Iraqi AAA fire and detonating 'bangs' from

U.S. cruise missiles and bombs across the hazy
predawn sky in Baghdad, I was stunned, partially
because I thought Saddam Hussein would obey
the final ultimatum brought by President Bush. It
tells Saddam: Leave Iraq or face war. He did not
leave Iraq and I even speculate that Eli Pariser
(I actually saw him on the TV news 2 days before
the war, on NBC news), the famous leader of the
anti-war group known as MoveOn.org, is shocked that
the U.S. had chosen the wrong choice--war--instead
of letting Saddam leave the country.

I am a Chicago native and I am pretty nervous. And you
probably know why. WAR HAS ALREADY HAPPENED!!! I have
jitters about possible retaliatory attacks on downtown
Chicago because even with the upgrading to the orange
color on the
National Terror Alert and the ratcheted-up security,
there is still free air space around downtown Chicago.
Mayor Richard Daley is presently trying to tell the
FAA to limit air space in that area.
I do not live in downtown Chicago, but memories of
the September 11 attacks still haunt me a little bit.

No-fly zones had already been established around
downtown New York and Washington D.C. and Disneyland
parks in California and Florida about 4 days just
before the first bombs and
missiles hit Baghdad yesterday and today.

It is a deep disgrace for all of those anti-war
protesters. They did everything they could to stop
war in Iraq by marches and blockades and die-ins and
sit-ins and human chains and human shields and other
'direct actions' not just in the United States--not
just around the
University of Illinois campus--but around the world--
Europe especially. Now that the war has happened,
the only light at the end of the tunnel is that we
all 'delayed war' by about 4 or 6 months. That is the
good thing we should be proud of. All was not lost in
the struggle to keep Bush from choosing military
action.