Gale force winds as high as 30 MPH whipped through the vigil and it was hard to grip the vigil sign to stop it from becoming an airborne missile. The howling winds were so strong, they swayed and bent 40 foot tall palm trees like twigs until their round green tops bowed to the sidewalks below.
Those powerful gusts repeatedly thrust me backward and in these weather conditions, it would have to be a short vigil.
Meanwhile, on Monday in Afghanistan, NATO forces opened fire on a car killing its four occupants, two of whom were initially identified as "known insurgents." Yesterday however, NATO reversed itself and acknowledged they had mistakenly killed a police officer and three teenage boys returning from a sports event.
A week earlier, a U.S. military convoy fired on a bus, leaving four innocent, blood spattered Afghans dead. There were no reports of how many people were wounded, nor of the trauma it caused their families, nor of the trauma to the U.S. soldiers who fired on them and must live with what they did.
While in Iraq, the Los Angeles Times on Monday broke the story that forces under the control of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, and kept in power with the support of the U.S. military, had seized 431 Sunnis, locked them up in a secret prison and tortured them.
71 have been released, while others were sent to different prisons and 200 are still held in this secret lockup. It is doubtful they have been charged with anything and it is not yet publicly known if others died in captivity or if Mr. Maliki is running other secret prisons.
This is what war does. It destroys everything in its path, including respect for humanity and the rule of law and causes the killing of children and their families, while making orphans of other children. These horrors will go on as long as the Iraq and Afghan wars continue.
But thousands of miles away, the vigil proceeded peacefully and from the heavy traffic came horn honks and waves of support. There was also one dramatic moment.
A brown Lexus SUV, handicap stickered in blue, stopped at a red light two car lengths back from the vigil. After reading the sign, the people in the front seats vigorously waved their support, and when the signal turned green, they drove up to the vigil and briefly stopped.
From the back seat, a tinted window slowly lowered and a 60 ish man leaned into the opening and said softly, "Thank you."
Despite the howl of the winds and the roar of the traffic, his words seemed to echo aloud, and as they slowly drove off, it was a lovely way to end last night's vigil.
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