FULL COLD MOON

FULL COLD MOON today, a Monday. It's the full Moon in winter, hence full cold moon - vastly different from Harvest Moon in the fall or the blazing summer moon. It was blue skies and Cool in Houston, not like the frozen northeast which just caught a huge Nor'easter (sp?).

Reports from Iraq that U.S. troops are surrounding villages with razor wire. I think it will cause great anger and will create more backlash, from citizens who feel imprisoned in their own country. I fear that we will increasingly look to them like Saddam -- who also imprisoned them at will and was quick to shoot anyone who got out of line. We are cutting ourselves off from Iraqis instead of engaging them.

In Afghanistan, 9 kids were killed in one of our bomb attacks against a terrorist, who was not killed. It's the forgotten war but its the real war against bin laden who is near there - but it doesn't seem to be getting any attention and not enough troops. A military friend sent me a memo about an operation - and the planners forgot to consider that Al Qaeda would already have people on the same mountain pass. They shot down a couple helicopters and the small team was shot to hell - one guy fell out and was surrounded, but they never got him out. Warlords are running the place and Opium harvest is back to boom, so things aren't as great as the politicians here keep claiming...and people are so preoccupied with their lives that the politicians can get by with it. Amazing.

So it is indeed, a Cold Full Moon, in many parts of the world tonight...