The End of All Things: Lebanon Edition
I don't normally comment on issues of politics or the region, because I'm far from well versed in these matters. One needs an element of cross eyed-ness to penetrate the wheels within wheels which underpin the Middle East. Remember the old adage, "a water pipe breaks in Damascus, which must be the fault of Israel"? Probably, but add that the semtex to blow up the pipe was most likely supplied by Iran.
Anyway, you know what?
I'm tired.
Fed up. Had it up to here.
Not. Interested.
In this war in Lebanon.
I'm sick of seeing dead children on the front page of the paper. And in the middle. They're rather a good way to break one's joie de vivre.
Because I don't care. Really, really don't. Feel no pain when I see dead children, or dead civilians, or destroyed, blasted, burnt out shells. Because I come from a place where I've been seeing this all my life, where every day brings forth new casualties. So if Lebanese people are dying in their hundreds, it makes no difference to moi. Because they didn't start petitions when my people were dying, they didn't send delegations to the security council. Because my skin colour doesn't entitle me to be alive.
In fact, I'm prepared to say that in some ways, I almost admire Israel. They care so strongly about their people - or at least about projecting the image that they do - that they are willing to journey to the darkest edges of insanity, raining biblical amounts of fire and brimstone upon unblemished innocents - for the sake of just two men.
And it's because those two men matter. Not because of their families or of public pressure, but the country values their lives.
Hezbollah doesn't value the lives of their countrymen. Why else would they be prepared to engage in a dangerous game of chicken with the most fearsome regional power? When all is said and done, they will withdraw from Lebanon back to their strongholds in Syria and Iran, while people are left to pick up the pieces and rebuild.
Should the US intervene? Why?
This region has clamoring for all out war with the infidels since I was a child. Well, now they've got it, so let's see what you're made of. Oh wait, looks like you ain't hard enough. Smacks of all manner of irony that they're asking the people they despise and behead to save them. So what if the Americans supplied them? Ask your 'good buddies' in the region to step in - God will do the 'needful'.
Oh dear, it looks like God has forsaken you.
Anyway, you know what?
I'm tired.
Fed up. Had it up to here.
Not. Interested.
In this war in Lebanon.
I'm sick of seeing dead children on the front page of the paper. And in the middle. They're rather a good way to break one's joie de vivre.
Because I don't care. Really, really don't. Feel no pain when I see dead children, or dead civilians, or destroyed, blasted, burnt out shells. Because I come from a place where I've been seeing this all my life, where every day brings forth new casualties. So if Lebanese people are dying in their hundreds, it makes no difference to moi. Because they didn't start petitions when my people were dying, they didn't send delegations to the security council. Because my skin colour doesn't entitle me to be alive.
In fact, I'm prepared to say that in some ways, I almost admire Israel. They care so strongly about their people - or at least about projecting the image that they do - that they are willing to journey to the darkest edges of insanity, raining biblical amounts of fire and brimstone upon unblemished innocents - for the sake of just two men.
And it's because those two men matter. Not because of their families or of public pressure, but the country values their lives.
Hezbollah doesn't value the lives of their countrymen. Why else would they be prepared to engage in a dangerous game of chicken with the most fearsome regional power? When all is said and done, they will withdraw from Lebanon back to their strongholds in Syria and Iran, while people are left to pick up the pieces and rebuild.
Should the US intervene? Why?
This region has clamoring for all out war with the infidels since I was a child. Well, now they've got it, so let's see what you're made of. Oh wait, looks like you ain't hard enough. Smacks of all manner of irony that they're asking the people they despise and behead to save them. So what if the Americans supplied them? Ask your 'good buddies' in the region to step in - God will do the 'needful'.
Oh dear, it looks like God has forsaken you.
posted by marwan | 4:32 AM
2 Comments:
I admire you for admitting canditly, "I don't care." The real meaning, of course, is that you're fed up with all of the moaning, blaming and complaining. It seems your biggest criticism is directed toward leaders in the Arab world. While they give lip service to standing up to Israel in effect they do nothing.
Even worse, they (leaders of liberation/terrorist organizations) do little more than put in jeopardy the lives of the people they are supposedly fighting for.
The one point I will disagree with you on is the notion of the Israeli government caring about its people. They too are putting the Israeli people in harms way by always taking the militant approach.
If they cared about the two soldiers or any of their soldiers they wouldn't engage in such reckless foreign policy. No, like the terrorist (and the Arab leadership), Israeli leaders have their own power and control issues at the heart of their agenda.
And, I wouldn't want to suggest cynically that all leadership is power-hungry and insensitive to the public they serve. One example, unfortunately one from the past, is Jimmy Carter (US president, 1976-1980). Few will doubt (I would hope) that he represented the best ideals of the United States. He was a leader who cared about humanity, not just about Americans and certainly not about a political agenda.
I'm sadly all too aware that Israel is using those two men in the same fashion as Hamas - as tools for foreign policy. It is also a sad thing that in (maybe) saving these two men, they have condemned others in their place. Perhaps children on a bus. Maybe teens in a nightclub, or families at a wedding.
So they don't really care. But they are *projecting the image* that they do, that they will take countless arab lives in exchange for one of theirs. Of course, it won't affect the fanatics; these two are in a street fight to the bitter end.
It has affected me though. Because when I said I don't care, I really don't. Rather than bringing the violence home and rousing some long hidden humanitarianism, it has instead made me completely apathetic to Arab death. There's so much of it, it ceases to have meaning.
Blame it on TV, if I must.
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