Infighting

A response to a project for "Soft Spots"

            Perhaps the Nato incursion into the former nation of Yugoslavia with their 'peace keepers' to control a civil war and ultimately to supervise the secessions of some of the provinces saved some lives.  It's unusual to look back at this beautiful country and recognize that Tito really wasn't that bad of a guy.  A dictator truly revered by his people.  He really kept the nation together until his death.  My parents spent their honeymoon traveling europe in the 70s.  They still have some of the water polished stones from the pristine beaches along the Croatian shores. 

            There are a group of people called the Marsh Arabs in the Middle East.  They live in the delta of the Tigris and Euphrates.  They lived there for eons.  When the Americans first attacked Iraq in defense of Kuwait I was in the six grade.  We had a subscription to Newsweek magazine.  As a twelve year old I found the picture editorials of the destruction exciting and immediate.  A crazy war that started because the Sunni Regime was angry that Haliburton was teaching the Kuwaitis how to drill horizontally across the border, draining Suddam's outlying oil fields.  The war was a short one and Iraq lost quickly and embarrassingly.  The veteran generals of Vietnam finally had a victory on there hands.  They even boasted how they had knocked Saddam's army back ten years in development.  The majority Shitte population along with the Kurds figured it would be a good opportunity to revolt.  But as quickly as the war was over the coalition was all but gone.  There was a no fly zone put in place but Swartzcoff (sic) made the critical error of allowing the Sunni government to fly their armed helicopters in the no fly zones.  Well, most of Iraq's bridges were destroyed.  Within a few months all hopes of a regime change were lost.  Saddam was particularly incensed with the attitude of the Marsh Arabs.  The fertile crescent of the cradle of civilization was poisoned and burned to the ground.

            It is sad that anyone would kill anyone for any reason.  It is depressing that naive zealots would use religion as a weapon.  Some of the gods are trying to prove who is the baddest kid on the block, or so it may seem.  It is round two in the ultimate fighting crusade between Jesus and Muhammed.  China is kicking the Buddha out of Buddha.  The Soviets with their massive war machine were a godless army with a corrupt government and all they did was murder millions of their own people, create the repressive Warsaw Pact, help the Viet Cong win the war for Ho Chi Minh and also invade Afghanistan.  Fresh off their defeat, the Pentagon thought Charlie Wilson had a pretty good idea of helping the Mujahadeen's surface to air capabilities.   

            I read somewhere that there was a federal document written by Paul Wolfowitz (sic) and friends who wrote about how a Pearl Harbor like event would allow a country to attack another country.  I read that a pipeline needed to be built across Afghanistan.  Clinton's reduction of the American armed forces had helped to create a fiscal surplus.  The Bush administration's travesty of liberty called the Patriot Act paved the way for demise of a once great nation.  Corporations created the military industrial complex to spread their plastics to a wider market of consumers.  Debasing the earth for oil and popping open bottles of Coca Cola and handing them to the blinking eyes of the unwary cultures of the world.

            Now we are drawing our current multitasked invasions to an end, unleashing robotic pterodactyls to stalk the skies of the multitudes of proxy wars, and welcoming our heroes home and patting them on their heads a bothersome rhythm that hums the tune of horror and atrocity.  Both the derision of their consciences as well as the dark angels of their future. 

            It's all a paradox really.  The reality of our world is a hastily scripted soap opera for the audience of stars surrounding us and a stage for the current dominant species to piss on their territories and call each other names.  Greed causes the grass on the other side to grow greener.  Ignorance waters the seeds of hatred and a lack of empathy provides a comforting light and direction in which to sprout.

            On a lighter side, some historians are saying that, compared to humanity's earlier track record, we are in a more peaceful leg of the journey.  I find this refreshing.  Money and power doesn't create happiness, love of beauty does.  Positive influence and the guarding of innocence are the closest things to God.