State of the World Address
The state of our world is fucked up. There’s some major hooey going on in the middle east and it likely won’t improve for a while.
The Israeli’s aren’t exactly saints in their various conflicts but then, in a war, who the Hell is? And I can’t blame them really. No matter their concessions, the aggressors against them have not stopped. Ever. Even if they did, some other radical extremist group would take their place and, after a slight lull, it’s back to targeting civilians, buses, night clubs and other acts of terror. Israel takes a lot of flak from the rest of the world and some of it is deserved. But not all of it. After all, how do you deal with an opponent who wants to drive you into the sea? Simple, really. You kill them all. The flaw with that plan is the amount of civilian casualties and collateral damage. But Israel has not done that. If they were the evil bogeymen that some would have us believe, that’s what they would have done. I have a feeling the amount of a shit they give about what the world thinks will soon be about zero. And this situation is going to get worse.
So, what we have here is a rising storm of conflict, brewing along an arc running from the mouths of the Indus to the Nile Delta. Civilization’s home turf, as it were, is sporting very few signs of it these days. That may be the soil where writing and agriculture and beer and other good things first sprang from, but that’s not all that was invented there, and sometimes it shows.
This is a situation where both sides have engaged in some pretty fucked up things. But you basically can tell which side does the more fucked up things. In terms of picking a side, I can’t help but support the one that doesn’t want to, say, kill me. So, go Jews.
Hope for peace but don’t count on it. It will likely get worse before it gets better.
July 18th, 2006 at 10:57 am
We are engaged in a cultural war with radical Islam, which, unfortunately, seems to constitute a good portion of the religion of peace.
I has evolved into a hit and run shooting war on its part and a real war on our part and on the part of Israel.
It will not end anytime soon, particularly with Europe’s slowly morphing into a Muslim society (e.g. France, where 20 percent of its residents are Muslim).
Israel has more nuclear warheads than Yamulkas (sp?), and it will wind up using one or more of them one day.
Then, things will probably cool down for a while (think Japan, 1945).
July 18th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
There is, unfortunately, no one to root for in all of this. Not a year goes by when we aren’t reminded how colossally stupid it was to give the Jews a sovereign state in that location — holy land or not. It’s orders of magnatude worse than if we had an anti-gay holocaust and subsequently decided to give the gays a sovereign “safe haven” in Alabama.
And, of course, Israel is in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t scenario. By engaging in excessive retaliation, the Israelis are doing exactly what the anti-Israel extremists want: fanning the flames of anti-semitism and anti-Zionism ever higher.
All of this isn’t to say that Israel shouldn’t respond to attacks against them — they absolutely should — but how you respond and against whom matters greatly, a fact that current Israeli leadership seems to miss completely. If Israel were to use the Mossad to take out key Hizbollah targets and leaders, I’d be all for this. Instead, they proverbially bomb Peter to get revenge against Paul.
July 18th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Chris:
The problem, I’m afraid, isn’t limited to Muslim extremism, although our greatest danger does currently come from that sector. It’s religious extremism (of any kind) that’s the problem. Witness, for example, abortion clinic bombings. I don’t kid myself for one moment into thinking that if the “reverend” Fred Phelps ever got any appreciable amount of power, he wouldn’t do things just as vile as what today’s Muslim extremists do.
July 19th, 2006 at 12:11 am
Neither do I. Yet, for some reason, even in one of the richest if not THE richest country(-ies) in the world, Fred Phelps can’t seem to get any money at all, or even a congregation that extends beyond his own extended family. More people read my friggin’ blog every day than follow Fred Phelps. Why is that?
July 19th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Primarily because we are one of the richest if not THE richest country(-ies) in the world. And also because we as a nation don’t take religion anywhere near that seriously. With the exception of a very small subset of self-professed Christians, most are “cafeteria Christians,” who patently disregard vast swaths of what the “good book” teaches. “Our” fundamentalists are less dangerous because there are fewer of them, and because they hold a lot less influence, not because they’re inherently less dangerous.
It also doesn’t hurt that our standard of living here is exponentially higher (see richest nations, again) — a fact owed in no small part to the fact that we don’t allow religion to rule all. It’s a lot harder to convince someone to blow her/himself up if s/he’s happy and well fed.
July 19th, 2006 at 5:24 pm
“More people read my friggin’ blog every day than follow Fred Phelps. Why is that? “-xlrq
Because we look at Phelps and know he is a stone ignorant jackass because we think for ourselves. Not something muslims do well.
July 20th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
[…] If you notice, the tags on the “Question” post are politics and Middle East. Now, what does Rodney King have to do with those topics? Nothing, however, I had a theory that one’s reaction to the beatdown would parallel one’s reaction to the Israel/Lebanon boondoggle. So I snuck behind those of you that left answers (here or at NiT) and checked your blogs. Many of you gave an ambiguous response, either not chosing from the choices offered or asking if you could say “both.” That response was reflected in those who stated opinions on the current conflict, too. Like with (Sorry to pick you out, mate) Say Uncle, who expresses concern about Israel’s actions while still rooting for the home team. […]