* We live in a world, which is at war. It started a long time ago continuing with innocuous names like skirmishes, incursions and storms. We are numbed by it. Perhaps we have accepted the fact that peace is not possible. So we just live around the concept and avoid dangerous destinations.
Peace is an ideal which is dictated by our individual beliefs and that of the nation in which we reside. Step over a line or swim across a river and that idea or ideal may be radically different.
A Conversation:
"Did you ask me do I believe in peace? You betcha. My kind. Leave me alone. Don’t bother me and I won’t bother you. I respect your right to practice your own faith. I ask the same from you.I want us to live in peace. Okay?
What? that's not Okay? You want peace on your own terms and not mine? And you will kill for it? That's rather harsh!"
YOUR PEACE OR MINE...something to think about
Dar-es-Salaam –is an Arabic term which means haven of peace.
The following is an excerpt from a book entitled THE HAJ by Leon Uris. I was published in 1985. It is a story about the early days of Israel and the Arabs who lived there. The following paragraph often comes to mind:
“"Before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was I against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world. And all of us against the infidel.”
Shiite VS Sunni Vs Kurd? All of them against Americans, Russians, Europeans, Christians and Jews?
WHO SENT US THE INVITATION:
Are Americans liberators or imperialists? Did we arrive with an invitation or did we crash the party in the Middle East. We usually favor the Sunni regimes but are now the more religious and conservative Shia are taking control. And we don't deal that well with theocratical governments. We are having a hard enough time here with respect to church and state issues in this country.
Somehow we just can't seem to get it right. We stay too long or not long enough. The Iraqis seem are closing ranks again ; going back to their old ways. Afghanistan is a tribal place and will remain as such. It is impossible to please everyone when everyone wants a different outcome.
Our young men and women in the armed forces went there for noble purposes. Many have given their lives peace. We are grateful and humbled by their sacrifice.
But it just may be that differences which lie between Islam and the rest of the world's faiths are unsolvable. It is possible that there can never be one haven of peace until we are all of one mind. And that won't happen with out great blood shed. I am afraid that these current embassy attacks are simply baby steps towards a Great War whose name is WWIII.
Whether the “film” blamed for the recent and ongoing uprisingwas in fact produced by an Egyptian Coptic, or a radical Islamic sleeper group or an Israel Jew, matters not. It is now obvious that it was planned to provoke and irritate. It got the results the producers wanted.
We are moving towards closed societies rather than inclusive societies. We are moving toward intolerance rather than tolerance. We have no idea who will lead in the years ahead.
Hopefully cool heads will prevail. But we may run out of patience.
The United States cannot and will not take away the right of free speech in this country. However, there are those who will use it against us. And that is the beginning of another essay. Censorship? Again?
*Image credit: grafikeray / 123RF Stock Photo
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Marianne Spellman
Angie Miller
Marty'sHusband
James M. Emmerling
wendyo
Ellen Hawley Roddick
Salon.com
Comments
So, if an underground group produced a movie like this in, I don't know, Syria, would that mean that if they weren't caught that the rest of the Middle East would turn on Syria?
r.
Syria is on its way...
We've been trying to clean up their mess since the end of WWII.
As long as there are poor and disfranchised people in the world, there will not be peace.
There's 90% unemployment in Palestine and most had never known anything but a tent.
This seems like a political statement rather than a philosophical. And your unemployment figures are off.
Unemployment in the West Bank is ~28% last reports, mostly because they are having a boom.
Unemployment in Gaza is 45%; a substantial amount of people are directly employed by Hamas.
That said, all these mobs are a disgrace to humanity, to their race, to their religion and to their Prophet. Arabs are famous for feeding the 'son of the road' and the Prophet of Islam did not kill Ambassadors. These people are ignorant savages (period). The response of the United states should be swift, and those responsible should pay the price promptly. Excellent post. R
The US doesn't seem to want secular rule in the Middle East among Arab countries. It makes them too stable. So better to mess around with the radical elements and terrorize and displace stable citizens and their governance. Promote civil war. Promote shock and awe. Disaster capitalism.
So the US is now "frenemy" with al Qaeda terrorizing Syria to topple the Assad regime (not really because he is anti-humanitarian, though he is to an extent) but because they illegitimately want to bring about regime change to weaken Iran, its ally.
And soon when al Qaeda gets a real grip on Syria the US will demonize al Qaeda again (though they have helped them thru proxy countries and directly via our CIA) and stir up the wmds fear to justify military intervention against Syria to rout al Qaeda (really finish off Syria and put a regime change puppet in there). Meanwhile thousands of Syrians are dying or being displaced. No biggie to war gamesmen America and NATO countries and Israel. There is no good faith -- peace-oriented -- diplomacy. It is all hypocritical bullshit.
How can any of us Americans be okay with the US CIA working so earnestly with al Qaeda for the "ends justifies the means" craven outcome in Syria? What happened in Libya.
I see US government as Iago whispering in whatever doomed because of us Othello ear we have at the moment.
Or there was a book, games people play. US likes to play "let's you and him fight". There is also "let's pull a fast one on Joey!" Destabilization is something our tax dollars go to in other countries. That embraces all sorts of ugly black ops shenanigans.
I need to learn more about the ethnic groups in the Middle East. But first I need to take off the blinders about the evil my own country is perpetrating.
power and control and competition and greed and winner take all paradigm. We need a shift to humanism, to cooperation and partnership and EMPATHY. That is when peace will come.
US governance = heart of darkness
My thoughts.
best, libby
Steel Breeze....Agree. Peace is not possible. War is probable.
Libby.... Very complicated. Should we watch when dictators are murdering their own citizens? Or do we interfere? If we interfere under what flag? Do we come to aid or to occupy and leave a presence behind for the 'good' of that country or own interests. Very complicated indeed.
Chicken Maan...Sadly agree.
All: Good book to read is called the Outliers by Malcom Gladwell.