Just to piss off anyone who's been taking sides in the recent fiasco....

NOBODY'S GETTING A COOKIE, DAMMIT!!! NO COOKIES FOR YOU!!!

*growls*

Okay.....so I've been watching the headlines online these past couple of nights, and I see both Israel and Hezbollah claiming victory for their side (typical swaggering ideological crap, you know...)...anyhow, it occured to me that what is really needed from the U.S. and the rest of the civilized international community is a resounding and definite statement that Israel and Hezbollah have both LOST.

Lost because they couldn't control themselves from getting down in the bloody mud and sand, and in doing so lost the respect of every decent nation that can express itself. Neither side has won, and neither side deserved to "win" over the dead bodies and shattered homes of both sides' civilians. If governments and ideological military bodies are going to act like spoiled and violent children, then they ought to be responded to as such, with no quibbling about any victory involved. Let there be no pretending that this was a "justified" war, or that either organization (though one be an official national military and the other regarded as a "terrorist" movement) can claim the moral high ground. There is no such thing to be claimed, not until civil diplomatic dialogue regains its priority over armed conflict as a preferred (and encouraged) choice of action.

In other words, "You've both been very naughty and you shan't have any bragging rights over it. It takes two to tangle, and you just haven't learned shite, it seems. So grow up, dammit, or the next time we'll all swat you both on the arse...."

And by the way, Israel, cut out that damn 'G-d-is-our-realtor' spiel and grow some humanistic credibility for dealing with other nations. If you want them to recognize you, then you have to recognize that they've called this place home for a good long uninterrupted time *without* being transplanted in to fill out some Manifest Destiny. Even the Arabs in World War I fought for their own nationalism, rather than having it arranged by fiat as an entitlement deal. Learn to co-exist with the sovereignty of other nations (as certain entities and faiths must also learn to deal with it and not deny or bully), or you will most assuredly someday be destroyed by that unallayed hostility and offensive defensiveness. Deal with it. Grow up. Stop leaning on other countries' resources and sway, because it only heightens the going impression that Israel has no power nor foundation without the armaments and funds and influence of the U.S. to hold it in position in the Middle East. Such an arrangement also implies that Israel has no honour of its own....and if no one can honestly defend your name without having a stake and agenda of their own in you, then I ask you truly, what does that amount to?

Hmmf. If only it could be said so, and taken to heart. If only the U.S. had a moral standing of its own from which to speak, instead of only the power and the sway. But dammitall, it needs to be said and it needs to be heard, because these are times when no one -- no one -- can claim an absolute justification for what they do. No country, no regime, no religion, no political party, no person alive can take their ideology to an extreme and expect to escape the consequences of their deeds by the strength of some fervent belief. Balance will out, and the extremists, all of them, will meet the harvest of their actions whether they like it or not. Hold back the absolutists -- and curtail and undermine their braggings at every turn, every side -- and perhaps there is some chance that they will turn aside from being all of them wrong, to reach a higher plane of human decency and what we call civilization.

Anyone think that'd make a viable political platform....? I think I'd call it, "Those who live by the sword will die by the sword -- Paradise not included."




[also posted at http://aureantes.livejournal.com/52127.html and as original reply at hyperlucidity....]