so i have a neice in london. she has a well-paying job; she speaks french, german and english well, and she was on her way to sri lanka for a holiday. Her boyfriend was going with her. the plane stopped in abu dhabi. just then, the war started, and they bombed the airport. the airline put her in a fancy hotel, expenses paid, and told her to wait. they'd have a plane out a s a p. they waited. no plane. they were holed up in abu dhabi as a war started. apparently 300,000 british travelers had their plans disrupted.

at first it looked like they could go on to sri lanka soon, but two things happened: one, the war went to sri lanka, and, two, it became obvious that if they went they couldn't come back. no flights were coming back through abu dhabi and their ticket didn't allow rerouting through delhi or some other place. they stayed still. they began to enjoy holiday things in abu dhabi - water park, shopping, etc. the danger of imminent shelling seemed minimal but on a wider level, stay out of the planes.

now it looks like they might go to paris on tuesday. my brother says the airlines found a narrow corridor, going up around iran and then just away from the russia-ukraine stuff, to get up into europe, and they'll use it. they also have a kind of deal with the war-makers - leave the commercial flights alone from two until about six in the evening. that gives them four hours a day to get people out of there.

my brother says usually in war they give people time to get out of its way, but in this case, no time, no warning, people were just stuck. to me that's a sign of incompetence on the u s military's part. somebody up there doesn't give a shit. and so, everyone's in harm's way and it's a kind of russian roulette.

we back here are just ashamed. we're waiting for some reason to spend millions a day, bomb girls' schools, disrupt oil shipping and air traffic, upset the balance, etc. are we just going to conquer the place, and take the oil? or is it just a crusade, they're the wrong religion, so, bomb them to smithereens. does someone benefit from this? some have called it the epstein war - trump needs it because it's clear he's a pedophile. netanyahu needs it worse because he's got similar scandals brewing. when you're at war you don't look too closely. eventually they'll be bombing american bases and then we'll all have to get united behind a common foe.

i myself think it's just ridiculous, but i don't want to say it too loudly. bring the world down, just for this? i'd rather bring trump and netanyahu down, and start over on the human relations. our peoples should be able to live in peace. we have no natural greivance against the iranian people.