With the latest news from Lebanon humming in the background, I have been thinking. No, not too depressed and introspective today, but still angry at what is happening - a simmering anger rather than a rage, as it were.
Israel is bombing Lebanon back twenty years, Iraq is in the midst of a sectarian civil war, the Taleban is resurgent in southern Afghanistan - the question is are we winning?
We being the liberal democratic West, and the thing we may or may not be winning being either the war on terror, or the winning of hearts and minds, or the hope that we are having an actual war on terrorism, rather than a general war on Islam.
There is a phrase in Australia at the moment, that of an arc of instability from Indonesia to the South Pacific. I feel, and fear that the major arc of instability at the moment goes all the way from the Egyptian border, through Gaza and Lebanon, Iraq, Iran all the way to Afghanistan and probably Pakistan.
And the news coming out of the part of the world is not good - there have been no liberal democracies built up, or even looking like being built up, in the past five years since 9/11. And even when democracy is allowed to take place, the 'wrong' parties seem to be winning. That was written tongue firmly in cheek, if only the elections and consequences thereof were funny in the real world...
And ever since Bush took over the Presidency in 2001, he has never appeared to be interested in either the Israeli/Arab situation or negotiating with people he disagrees with at all. There has always been a roadmap to peace, that the Arabs or their militias had to stop terrorism, to disarm, to always do that one step first before the Israelis had to do anything, like stop building settlements in the West Bank. Or the one about the idea that the Americans will 'allow' the Israelis one more week of carnage in Lebanon before Condi even considers getting her feet wet in the situation.
Or the fact that Bush seems to think that if only 'someone' talked to the Syrians that Hizbullah would be sorted out. How stunningly naive, especially when his Administration is so black and white, with us or against us, that he obviously doesn't consider that America could be the someone to talk to the Syrians or Iranians - or North Koreans, but that's another crisis altogether.
Yes, of course if someone talks to Damascus, then everything will be okay again, Hizbullah will automatically put their missiles away, the Lebanese will obviously be all sweetness and light towards their southern neighbour who have damaged most of the country's infrastructure, oh, and maybe Iran will also decide to give away their nuclear ambitions.
Thinking nasty words to say of the US President, but will keep them in my head for now.
My thought is that we are not winning, that the anti-Israeli, anti-American, anti-Western forces will get stronger the more 'Operation Bomb Back To The Stone Ages' we have, and that we truly need to take a step back, a deep breath, and wonder what we are trying to do with the Arab world. Because to me, at the moment, we sure as heck aren't helping them.
And also step back and take a deeper breath with the sight of next week's oil prices.
Paul
Israel is bombing Lebanon back twenty years, Iraq is in the midst of a sectarian civil war, the Taleban is resurgent in southern Afghanistan - the question is are we winning?
We being the liberal democratic West, and the thing we may or may not be winning being either the war on terror, or the winning of hearts and minds, or the hope that we are having an actual war on terrorism, rather than a general war on Islam.
There is a phrase in Australia at the moment, that of an arc of instability from Indonesia to the South Pacific. I feel, and fear that the major arc of instability at the moment goes all the way from the Egyptian border, through Gaza and Lebanon, Iraq, Iran all the way to Afghanistan and probably Pakistan.
And the news coming out of the part of the world is not good - there have been no liberal democracies built up, or even looking like being built up, in the past five years since 9/11. And even when democracy is allowed to take place, the 'wrong' parties seem to be winning. That was written tongue firmly in cheek, if only the elections and consequences thereof were funny in the real world...
And ever since Bush took over the Presidency in 2001, he has never appeared to be interested in either the Israeli/Arab situation or negotiating with people he disagrees with at all. There has always been a roadmap to peace, that the Arabs or their militias had to stop terrorism, to disarm, to always do that one step first before the Israelis had to do anything, like stop building settlements in the West Bank. Or the one about the idea that the Americans will 'allow' the Israelis one more week of carnage in Lebanon before Condi even considers getting her feet wet in the situation.
Or the fact that Bush seems to think that if only 'someone' talked to the Syrians that Hizbullah would be sorted out. How stunningly naive, especially when his Administration is so black and white, with us or against us, that he obviously doesn't consider that America could be the someone to talk to the Syrians or Iranians - or North Koreans, but that's another crisis altogether.
Yes, of course if someone talks to Damascus, then everything will be okay again, Hizbullah will automatically put their missiles away, the Lebanese will obviously be all sweetness and light towards their southern neighbour who have damaged most of the country's infrastructure, oh, and maybe Iran will also decide to give away their nuclear ambitions.
Thinking nasty words to say of the US President, but will keep them in my head for now.
My thought is that we are not winning, that the anti-Israeli, anti-American, anti-Western forces will get stronger the more 'Operation Bomb Back To The Stone Ages' we have, and that we truly need to take a step back, a deep breath, and wonder what we are trying to do with the Arab world. Because to me, at the moment, we sure as heck aren't helping them.
And also step back and take a deeper breath with the sight of next week's oil prices.
Paul
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