...I am willing to accept the possible authenticity of the überhyped tape. Still, my acquiescence doesn't signify much, as I am hardly a player in the situation itself. As Keith R pointed out, it is unlikely that the terrorists regard their actions as wrong. The Koran does admonish us to, "Fight those who believe not in God nor the last day." I guess it doesn't matter if God is on your side, Allah is on your side, or Jehovah is on your side. Your preferred Invisible Man in The Sky of choice will always take precedence over anyone else's preferred Invisible Man in The Sky of choice.
The whole thing is beginning to remind me of a convoluted episode of the old David Carradine series Kung Fu. In the series Quai Chang Kane was a loner good guy barefooting it throughout the "Wild West", albeit with a price on his head in China. This meant occasionally dodging globetrotting bounty hunters, but mostly it meant getting hassled continuously by yay-hoo cowpokes.
The show had only an hour in which to deploy its thin plot-line, so here is how every single episode went: For the first forty minutes scads of belligerent ruffians beat up on the poor half-breed "Chinee yeller skin". This sufficiently built up the rationale needed to justify what inevitably happened during the final ten minutes, when that selfsame dragon/tiger branded Shaolin priest played chop-socky havoc on all the wrongdoers, preferably in groups of three or more simultaneously.
Now, you may well ask me how this resembles in any way the current situation in the world military arena. I told you it was only my view and that it was "convoluted".
Instead of the lone antihero suffering for forty minutes, we have four thousand ordinary everyday antiheroes suffering intensely at the top of the scenario. Pretend, if you will, that in TV episode terms, this is only the first minute of the show. The point is that the intensity of the suffering provides all the rationale needed for what will be happening during the final 59 minutes of the hour.
I understand the dynamics of the situation. I understand all sides of all the issues and have sympathy, even empathy, for every position argued by every party involved on all sides of the world. I would dearly love to see a meaningful resolution which would not merely satisfy the major players, but obviate the conditions which ultimately inspire terrorists to wreak their mayhem upon us.
But there are problems. I see us going deeper into the sorts of conditions which motivate terrorists, not really effecting any real resolution. I know exactly why they have such anger for us. It is not our freedom they envy, but rather it is our political and nationalist arrogance which catches in their collective craw. We do not "speak quietly and carry a big stick", which might be endurable. We literally perpetrate ourselves on foreign soils and the peoples that live there. We brandish our power in every backwater banana republic like Lords of the Manor. But like the mighty Achilles, we have been shown our own heel, and it really hurts like hell.
The biggest problem, in my view, is simply this - in my wildest imaginings, I cannot envision any final victory, no coup de grâce or positive outcome of any sort, for anyone. We have adapted a militaristic policy of "going fishing with a golden hook" for the sake of revenge, and anyone who dares to seek an answer by looking within is treated as unamerican, traitorous.
How curious it is that all the major conflicts on the planet seem to proceed from the actions of radical elements representing three major religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
Looks like "world without end" might be mutating into "War without end".
Amen
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