and Who’s to blame?
by Nick van der Leek
To some, World War III refers to the Cold War. Although it was an invisible under-the-radar war, it was nevertheless real, and so were the casualties. There was also a winner and a loser, but, understandably, it’s not popularly seen as a World War. What we’re seeing now in the Middle East is closer to our concept of multiple worldwide forces meeting each other with various weapons, and overwhelming force, on an expanding battlefield.
The writer James H. Kunstler has written about this subject on his blog (www.kunstler.com) this week, and his views, once again, are right on the button. He puts the date for the start of World War III at 11 September 2001. It is basically a war waged overtly between the Muslim and Christian religions, but laid over that is a framework of geopolitical ambition. In plain English that means a country like Kuwait may sink horizontal wells into Iraq, or the USA may invade Iraq to police its oil (geopolitical ambition), but the invasions are rationalized by more general explanations of ‘good’ versus ‘evil’.
If that is true, what are we to make of Hezbollah vs. Israel? Hezbollah can be accused of plenty of mischief, but it is difficult to see them as the aggressor when their casualties are 10 times more, and whole towns have been demolished or occupied by Israeli forces.
Israel argues that it warned civilians to leave, but let me ask you, if an invading army asks you to evacuate your home and your village, leaving all your belongings, would you? Could you?
Israel does seem to be guilty of overreacting, and doing so with impunity. Israel is a regional superpower, and we’ve seen that demonstrated time and time again. It’s a concern when a building is targeted with precision guided missiles, and 50 civilians are carried out, half of them children (who may have been unable to travel long distances). And it’s a concern when a UN building is targeted and destroyed. Kunstler says that Hezbollah intentionally hide their missiles under human shields, and I tend to agree.
Having said that, I’m not sure Israel can call the level of its retribution justified. I’m sure if you have zero respect for the god of your adversary, and you see your adversary as subhuman, it is easier for both sides to kill the other without the burden of guilt. There’s a dangerous echo of this sort of attitude throughout history. The Nazi’s saw themselves as the ‘master’ race, and so could justify killing everyone else to expand their ‘living space’. In the same way, this oh-so-human-habit of calling oneself ‘good’ and one’s adversary ‘evil’ (or varying degrees of bad) simply provides the license for that epitome of war: specialized slaughter and mass murder.
Is Israel’s lesson from World War II to ‘do severely unto others before it has been done unto you?’
While Israel is guilty of making at least two big failures – so far – in its missile targeting, they are generally believed to be seeking out and destroying military targets. Hezbollah are just firing blindly into urban settlements in Israel. Hezbollah are also backed by other terror organizations, and a country, Iran, whose stated intention is to ‘wipe Israel’ off the map. Given this context, it’s easier to see Israel as defending its right to live where they do, and to do so decisively.
Although it’s a moot point, the decision to create a state of Israel after World War II, in an area surrounded on every side by traditional enemies of the Jews, was always going to lead to war. As weapons become more sophisticated (to make up for squabbling communities that have not evolved in their consciousness) the risk becomes greater and greater that war, in this area, will become altogether more destructive. We all know this, but we’re now at the point where these weapons can and will be brought into being.
As Kunstler suggests, we now have a weapon-ready alliance of states that are either part of a so-called ‘axis of evil’, or might volunteer to be. North Korea, Pakistan and possibly Iran are Nuclear Convenience Stores, or soon will be. Israel and its patrons already have nuclear weapons.
What perpetuates the conflict is that it is so difficult to even imagine a solution that works. The end game scenario has to be Israel obliterating, once and for all, all the enemies it has in the Middle East. Or, it is the final destruction of Israel by its enemies. Both these scenarios are unbearable to contemplate. The third option, which is that Jew, Muslim and Christian learn to respect and tolerate each other (and at least theoretically acknowledge the other’s right to worship a God different to their own) feels like special pleading that will never come to fruition.
Until humanity is capable of truly pursuing this third option, we’ll be lost in wars and the wiping out of ourselves and each other’s Gods in the name of our children. I wonder, will we humans ever grow up and become truly civilized?
Meanwhile Israel has killed 20 Hezbollah guerillas in their most recent maneuvers in Lebanon, bringing the total to about 200 Hezbollah dead (and about double that number in civilian deaths). Iran has until the end of this month to comply with a UN backed US resolution to dismantle its nuclear programme. Iran immediately rejected this resolution, saying it is a peaceful programme. Once again, there are geopolitical issues at play here, and laid over these will be the propaganda of who is ‘good’ and who is ‘evil’.
It’s the Iran Question that will decide the where, and the how of the next phase of World War III. The when ought to be sometime soon, possibly as soon as September.
[for related information, click on the title of this post]
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