Policies of Escalation

As I sit here, people are dying in conflicts all over africa & the middle east. I doubt those dying understand the why of it all any more or less than those doing the killing. Little groups of people murdering people in horrible ways at the behest of even smaller groups of people-called leaders-with agendas that don't match up to the rhetoric they feed the masses. Right now, Israel, has declared anyone still in South Lebanon a "terrorist". Somewhere in South Lebanon, a young man grips a rifle or aims a short range missile, fighting an enemy who's been an enemy his entire young life. Somewhere, an IDF soldier prepares to be on the ground, going door to door or ready to drop a bomb payload, on an enemy that thinks he & his country shouldn't exist.

Each side has valid reasons to mistrust the other. Each side is complicit in the deaths of innocents. Instead of being drawn to find a way of peace and cohabitation, each side has chosen a war of escalation. When one does an evil, the other tries to do a greater evil. The bodies, often of children, mount higher and higher on each side. Fear has increased, hate has increased. Money pours in from allies on both sides, the attacks keep coming and the bodycount grows. Supposedly, escalation will make the other side sicken of war. Civilians will be so dispirited, they'll call for their governments to settle and be rid of all extremists.

After all this time, the people want peace, but how can there be peace without safety? How can there be safety, without peace? So each side keeps attacking, hostilities escalate and people die. Neither side, despite the constant attacks, is willing to commit the real level of atrocities that can really make the world sick of war. So they keep chipping at each other, bit by bit. Civilian by civilian. And slowly, they lose each chance at peace to extremists. What a world.