Levant Rant...

Gee, I know, promised the Sych Soldiers in three parts, and they will continue tomorrow, but I got a hair up my ass or something, so, this Levant Rant...

The escalating conflict between Israel and Lebanon, not to mention Gaza will end, where? Hopefully soon, but holding your breath is not a life positive choice.

There is so much hypocrisy and lowdown meanness involved on all sides, it hardly seems worth the effort to portion it out – there is more than enough to cover everyone in shame.

Are Iran and Syria, one or the other – or both – black hands behind Hisbolla’s provocations? Is the Israeli response measured against Hesbollah or are there other cookies in the oven? It’s hard to know and even less easy to speak about what is going on here. It could also be the crank up to long awaited action(s) against Syria and Iran.

Whatever, both sides are upping the ante...

I really don’t know. All I know this is the most dangerous situation in a long time, one which could lead to a world wide conflation of people who have a scores to settle and way too many weapons to do it with.

There was a minor scuffle over at Raven’s Place the other day because somebody thought not enough bloggers were commenting on the Mumbai bombings and instead concentrated on a “minor” sequence of rape, mutilation and murder in Mahmudiyah.

My two bits in that exchange was that it’s not the number of people in itself which determines the significance of an event, even in a larger, historical perspective. For example. one man killed, almost by chance, in Sarajevo, set off the chain of events which led to the “Guns of August” and a generation of European youth thrown into the meat grinder.

Should the present situation in the Gaza and Levant spiral into a larger conflict allowing that hulking and slavering Thing in the stage wings make its entrance, its cue will have been the capture of first one, then two Israeli soldiers. Actually that’s not quite true, the long fuse to WWIII (or IV, depends who’s counting…) was lit with the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Rabin. It’s all gone downhill since then.

Something I never had understood is the fear-mongering that terrorists will get hold of a suitcase nuke or some other infernal device. Why can’t people see that all the bombs are in the hands of terrorists? Perhaps people do, but dare not say it for fear of being thought crazy. Well, I am crazy, so I got no problem:

All the bombs are in the hands of terrorists!

Not only that, but it is plain common sense that those who have the most bombs who are the most likely to use them...