For reasons unknown, fighter jets have been buzzing the air space over Chicago for the past few hours. Their first pass was directly overhead and the sound made me think that a plane was coming down in our neighborhood, for we are on a landing path to O’Hare. But this sound was coming from the other direction, making me that much more disoriented. Considering what these mechanical fighter birds are doing in Najaf today, once can begin to grasp just how terrifying it all really is. Maybe that’s why they’re up there today, to remind a city of 10,000,000 that we are, in fact, at war.
Najaf, Iraq today