Nightmares.....

Last night was a long one. I'm not sure why, but I woke myself up several times in the middle of some very frightening nightmares. Maybe I had too many covers, maybe it was something I ate, maybe it was the news of the day.

We have been mostly out-of-touch on an RV trip to Nova Scotia. We've been gone two weeks, and had very little contact with the outside world for about a week....and the radio news we did pick up was mostly about the race for Prime Minister here in the province. But I think I understand that the US and several other countries are bombing the hell out of ISIS.

My toss-and-turn nightmare had to do with multiple bombs falling onto multiple targets. And each time we obliterated one ISIS combatant, five or six others popped up from holes in the ground. Each was basically a head, swathed in black cloth with just eyes showing.....just like the image of the ISIS fighter who beheaded the American reporters. A chilling, dead-eye-stare head popping up....more and more as the bombs dropped. I honestly woke up with my heart pounding.....and then it turned into a "day-mare" as I lay there trying to go back to sleep. The images just kept playing out.....over and over in my brain.

And my thoughts spun off from there. The memory of then President Bush standing on an aircraft carrier after we'd bombed Iraq, declaring "victory". (Just slightly premature.) News stories of "boots on the ground". The image of President Obama and his advisors the night they actually got Osama bin Laden.....and knowing his body was somewhere in an ocean. (Somehow getting rid of him, although providing perhaps a little pay-back for 911, didn't change much of anything.) More news stories how many years later of "drawing down the troops" because the Iraq army was now ready to take control of their own country's needs. And then ISIS and the Iraqi army fleeing in front of the assault.

And now we drop bombs.....and there are a few comments starting about needing "boots on the ground" or "advisors". History repeating itself. A knowledgeable friend who happens to live in Japan posted a comment on her Facebook page saying the U.S. was once again playing "whack a mole". I remember that kids game. I seem to remember it was almost un-winnable.

Whack a mole.......maybe her comment was the foundation of my nightmare. Our collective nightmare.