What do you tell your child when they say that we are going to kill someone else before they have a chance to kills us?
This morning I dropped Etan off at nursery school. All the other kids had brought their hooded gas masks with them as the army gave an order for everyone to carry them around with them. The rest of the kids were hard at work drawing on the light brown cardboard boxes. If you are going to walk around with something then it ought to look good. I hadn't really thought to bring Etan's so I had to run home to get it.
The building that the nursery is in has a bomb shelter downstairs. There is now way that two or three teachers could put gas masks on 32 children so the shelter has an electronic air filter as do many safe rooms in people's homes. The gas masks for the kids are in case the need arises between home and the nursery. In our case a two minute walk.
About three weeks ago the four and five year-old kids were taken downstairs into the bomb shelter and given a lesson about the war. At home we never spoke about it, not because we were sheltering the kids but because we truly don't give it much thought. But I'd heard Etan talking about it a few times so the other night while we were having dinner with friends I asked him what he knew about the war.
I asked, "Who is Saddam Hussein?"
Etan responded, "He's the man that tells the Iraqis what to do."
"And what does he tell them?"
"He tells them to kill all of the Land of Israel."
"Why does he want to do that?"
"He doesn't like us. So we're going to kill them so they can't kill us."
"No, we're going to protect ourselves so we don't get killed."
Obviously he's getting more information about the war outside the house than inside the house. Recently he doesn't sleep well at night, doesn't want to stay at friend's houses too long. We'll see if this has anything to do with the war or not. Meanwhile this afternoon I opened Tamir's and my gas mask kits, opened up the filters, made sure everything fits and that the battery in his air cleaner works ok. Nothing is going to happen. But we're ready.
We've gotten some questions about whether we are ready for the war. The short answer is posted here, a more detailed answer maybe written in the next few days.
Foreign workers and residents have to pay 200 shekels for a gas mask and get 100 shekels back when they return them. Everyone else got them but from time to time you have to go have parts replaced like the atropine syringe in case of nerve gas. Or for instance as children get older they move to different kinds of masks from a tent for toddlers to a hood for older kids to regular ones. Ours were refreshed when I went last summer to get Tamir's and replace Etans. Mozhi called while I was in the US to be sure that we didn't have to have the refreshed at this time.
As for food and stuff, we have a case of bottled water, cans of baby corn and other food. I bought a radio when I was I the states and batteries and we have flashlights. The television from the bedroom has been moved to the mamad or 'safe room' and of course we have the futon in there already. So we're pretty ready.
Some people have asked what I think about this war. Read a bit of my thoughts. They may be totally off, they are just casual observations.
Now to the war. I don't believe that Saddam has the ability to deliver chemical or biological weapons as far as Israel or even over the border into Saudi Arabia for that matter. I do believe that he has the ability to use them in the battlefield though I don't believe that he has very much to use. So I think we might hear of some US troops being attacked with mustard gas but don't think we'll hear of them being hit with small pox.
I'm all for getting rid of Saddam but don't think that the US has made their case. They've been trying to come up with all sorts of arguments for this war and I don't believe most of what the Bush administration has said. Also I think that this war is basically happening for two reasons. First because we have a Bush in the white house and he has surrounded himself with all the people responsible for the failure of his father in the first war with Iraq. Second because the US is wholly incapable of dealing with al-Qaeda-style terrorists and they need to do something to show the world, but more to reassure themselves, that they are the supreme military force in the world and can do whatever they want whenever they want. This is an important thing in general but I think they are surprised that the rest of the world isn't jumping on the bandwagon. I think that North Korea is much more of a threat to the US and the world but time will tell.
What do you think?