It's been going on all weekend in my life – friends trying to talk to friends about the latest firestorm in the Middle East. Who is at fault, Lebanon or Israel? Passions run high, and passion kills the ability to think.
It's time now to think.
Applying the "who started what, who is right and who is wrong" argument to this current conflict is going to get us all killed.
So what if Hezbollah is toying with CNN? Who cares if Israel has a better publicity machine? I'm used to being lied to by the media and by governments. It isn't in the interest of the former to tell the truth. With notable exceptions -- Robert W. Fisk, for one -- the latter are too damn lazy.
But that's no matter. What we need to know is that it isn't going to be possible to convince people who have been holding the banner for one side or the other to change their minds.
I hold no banner, unless it Gaia's, and this is what I see:
Everyone is wrong. Period. Israel is, Lebanon is, the US is; the End Timers are, for sure for trying to get their bloody mythology to come true by manipulating Israel and the American President.
It's been said that the End Timers are the American Taliban. That could be so, but so what? It isn't the issue. Or at least not right now. It's time will come, but now this is the issue:
Anyone who isn't looking at this conflict between Israel and Lebanon as two madmen with matches dancing around a fuse to the biggest bomb ever, is not looking at reality.
Reality is that Pakistan very likely has nukes.
If this conflict draws Pakistan in -- either because she feels she needs to take a side, or she needs to protect herself, or both -- the nukes are loose. Same for India, but Pakistan is the real danger because she's right there. Pakistan can't protect herself from terrorists any more than the rest of us can.
If Afghanistan is still holding on to it's purple-finger government, it's a miracle because the American President took his eye off that ball years ago. The Taliban is back. They could take down the Afghan government in a month and then go for Pakistan. And if that government falls, the nukes are loose.
Do you know what the Taliban is? A bunch of illiterate mullahs trying to force the Muslim world back to the Prophet's 7th century. Literally. It is their stated goal. They go into bookstores and burn all the books with pictures. Why? Because they can't read, but they know it's a sin to make images of living creatures. Smart booksellers paste their business cards over the pictures to save the books – no images, no sin, no matter what the words are telling those who know how to read. Now, think about it: Do you want these geniuses in charge of a nuclear device or two?
The other scenario is as scary: the nukes end up in the caves on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border.
Either way, we are all facing the kind of end our own American Taliban, the End Timers, are not envisioning as they play puppet master to the American President.
This thing has to stop. I don't care about Israel, I don't care about Lebanon. Not as far as who is right and who is wrong. I care deeply about both nations and the region in that I'd hate to see their children nuked out of existence the same as I'd hate to see ours blasted to hell. Right now, each horror or both is a possibility.
If they are to survive, if we are to survive, Israel, Lebanon and their supporters must detach from their insane prejudices and their killing pride.
If we are to survive, everyone must step back and see that Israel, Lebanon and their masters are about to commit suicide.
When they do, they will take the rest of us with them.
