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| QUOTATIONS 2089-2100 |
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| 2089.Thirty five -day war. What has happened? The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen! Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. 2 Samuel 1:19,20 The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved Jeremiah 8:20 During the recent thirty five-day war between Israel and Hezbollah, and especially after the cease-fire, there has been a lot of hand wringing about how the Americans, and even the French were holding the door opened at the United Nations for the Israelis to finish the job with Hezbollah, once and for all, and how Israel has disappointed all by essentially attacking civilians instead of their true enemy, and thus "losing" this round. And everyone, safely seated in front of their TV sets, waits eagerly to watch the next one. Not so fast. Let's calm down for a moment and reflect on what has actually happened before our very eyes. To begin with, the notion of "holding the door opened," implying some predetermined timetable, is rather perplexing when applied to any military conflict. Wars are not trains, they don't run on schedule. After the bloody disaster of Dieppe on August 19, 1942 it took Americans, British, Canadians, and assorted allies (Free French under De Gaul including) two years to prepare for the Normandy invasion in June 1944. And rightfully so. Otherwise tens of thousands of the Allied soldiers would have been slaughtered by the well intrenched German defense. And nobody, but Stalin, demanded from them to hurry up. In the meantime they bombed, day and night, German cities full of civilians to be killed and maimed. Were they enemies? Were they innocent? It all depends how you look at it.For though we all regret "collateral damage," perhaps the problem of "collateral responsibility" should be considered as well. Are people who either actively support or passively acquiesce (the line, often, is hard to draw) in being governed by murderous regime responsible when it attacks other people? But, whether innocent or not, as thousands were killed everyday, nobodydy was counting them, nobody objected, nobody was talking about "holding the door open." There was no door. There were Gates of Hell and Maw of Death devouring millions. And while lamenting beautiful Beirut, remember London during the Blitz. Remember Warsaw, remember Dresden and Hamburg. Remember Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Remember Leningrad and Stalingrad. For that's what war is and always has been. So, trying to micro-manage this or that particular war is useless. One who is against wars, and all sane people are, should try to abolish them altogether. That's what the United Nations were created for in the first place, and not to distribute blankets and food, and provide employment opportunity for impoverished nations, like Bangladesh, who sell their men to the UN for hard currency. So far the United Nations have miserably failed in this primary task, and became instead the world's greatest White Elephant. By imposing certain conditions on Israel, how it should fight its wars, and how quickly, the world is playing with fire. Neither animal, nor man when cornered and having nothing to lose act rationally. The way things go, if it is true that Israel possesses the nuclear weapons, the horrors of nuclear war we've been dreading for the past 60 years may come true very soon. To prevent it, the world community should stop bickering about how many soldiers and with what mandate each country agrees to provide to separate Israel from Hezbollah and start doing what is necessary to save the Middle East and perhaps itself. And though at this moment everyone, including Israelis, is criticizing the Israeli government for having been indecisive and not willing to sacrifice hundreds, perhaps thousands, Israeli soldiers to kill each and everyone Hesbollah fighter and destroy every single katiusha rocket, I am beginning to think that concentrating on destruction of cities, villages, roads and bridges was the only way to do it. First, there is no point of wasting your young men for the land you will be forced to relinquish the day after you conquered it. Second, 6000 Hezbollah fighters could be quickly replaced and rockets re-supplied (Shiites are poor and Iran doesn't grudge money to kill the Jews). Thus, whether they or anybody else like it or not, the ultimate solution of this conflict is in the hands of the people of Lebanon. They have to de-fang Hezbollah or face the destruction of their country and themselves as a nation. Israel's actions made it perfectly clear for everyone whose mind is not clouded by religious fanaticism and maniacal antisemitism. The claim by Lebanon's government that its attempt to disarm Hezbollah will cause a civil war is valid and one can sympathize with their situation as being between a rock and a hard place. Yet they cannot expect Israel to put the survival of Lebanon ahead of its own. And though there are plenty of people today who would sacrifice the Jews to achieve "peace in our times" in the Middle East and elsewhere, this world has no right to ask Israel to commit national suicide. Not after 2000 years of persecution. Not after Holocaust. Not ever again. 2090. Women being in general less jealous than men in the matter of all thing sexual (polygamy was a norm, rather than exception, in the early stage of human civilization, without causing too much frictions in the family) are very skillful in exploiting men's almost psychotic sense of sexual possessiveness. Playing on this weakness, a woman may use her potential promiscuity to threaten and actual infidelity to punish a man for the real or imagined harm he caused her. It helps, of course, that due to biological differences between the genders a woman can have sex anytime without the slightest sexual arousal (prostitution is proof of it) and few men would refuse to oblige when sex is offered by any woman of reasonable age and not completely revolting in appearance. That women are less jealous than men is also testified by the fact that some women are actually proud of their man's popularity with other females, seeing this as a proof they possess valuable property desired by others. I know of no man who would go that far. 2091. The action movies made to appeal to the young men's primary passions–sex and violence–consist, accordingly, of two parts–making love (the more graphic the better) and killing bad guys, if it is fiction, or bed monsters if it is science fiction (in both cases the bloodier the better). As a man myself I see nothing particularly wrong with it, genre wise. Except, I don't think that disproportionate allocation of time–5min. to sex, 55min. to violence is a true reflection of what young men want from life. But then, being no longer young myself, I could be mistaken. 2092. To the short list of life's certainties, like death and taxes, one more has been just added – the imminent acquisition of atomic weapon by Iran. Which, in its turn, will soon extend this list of certainties by one more item – inevitability of nuclear war. It is hard to predict who will be the first to drop a bomb, and when. But the location is clear – somewhere in the Middle East. The place where our civilization has begun would be the place where it'll end. The cradle will become the grave, and the circle completed. For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. And I'm torn between a desire to live long enough to witness it, and a hope to die before it happens. 2093. The worshiping of the heroes, be they kings, tyrants, movie, sport, or rock stars, is the major bane of humanity. For hero worshiping turns individuals into a mob, and the mob is capable of nothing but destruction and mayhem on the grand scale. Therefore, when celebrities donate their names and time to promote good causes, they don't do us a favor, but expiate their sins. 2094. Some people collect stamps, other coins. As one who "collects" readers, i.e. those who read what I write, I consider myself a collector as well. But here similarity ends. For unlike other collectors who can buy, sell, or swap what they collect I could not do that. I had to acquire my readers one at a time, by appealing to their taste, intellect, and especially to their affinity to myself. People like this is not always easy to find and even more difficult to keep. Therefore the process is painstakingly slow and often humiliating. But do I have any other choice? 2095. Origins and dynamics of cults. People are the group animals, for they cannot survive physically alone. A group of several individuals cannot function without some kind of consensus and leadership to uphold it. Leadership presupposes obedience of many to few or one. The individual members of the group have no choice but to obey. If they don't they are forced to leave the group and, as a result, shall perish. The myth of man's exile from Paradise for disobedience to God is archetypal reflection of this reality. It also brings home the cruel truth that it doesn't make any difference whether the disobeyed rule makes any sense or not. As a matter of fact, an unquestioning submission to senseless rule is a crucial test of true obedience. All military-psychological training is geared to develop such unquestioning obedience by forcing soldiers to follow intentionally scentless orders and regulations. That's what installing of military discipline is all about. The non-military upbringing is essentially the same – to train one to obey the societal rules, whether they make sense or not. It is more obvious in the formal schooling, but in the less conspicuous form it is practiced everywhere, in any human institution from family and church to political parties, government and society at large. From here to participation in a cult is but one step. For one who has learned and grew accustomed to obey rules, regardless of their soundness, just to survive as a part of any particular group, is a ready material for cult's membership. And the reason why some do join cults and some don't is a matter of chance. But given proper circumstances and conducive environment it would take enormous strength of character and unbending individuality to reject the group and leave it. For one cannot remain the individual and stay in the group. The price of admission into "collectivity" is surrendering "individuality" at the entrance. Those unwilling to pay are ejected or destroyed. There is no possibility of compromise. Group does not allow compromise. It is ruthlessly jealous. It wants everything or nothing. It wants your body and your soul. And cult is only the extreme form of it, different from other human institutions not in kind but in degree. 2096. The prohibition to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which carried a death penalty for its transgression, is a clear indication that from the beginning of Religion the natural inclination to believe has always been accompanied by no less natural impulse to know. And the fear of persecution divine, and thus hypothetical, and human, and very real, has been employed early on to make the doubters see the light of true religion, or else. For Religion has always recognized Knowledge to be its greatest adversary. Faith and doubt, theism and atheism, dwell side by side in man's mind, often making rather unfriendly neighbors, occasionally coming to blows when that place appears to be too small for both of them. Like the famous Biblical twins, Esau and Jacob, they were born together, issue of the same womb, destined to fight for supremacy of primogeniture. But unlike in the obviously biased Biblical version, there is no and never will be a winner in this contest, which shall go on forever. 2097. When a tribe of cannibals votes whom to have for breakfast, is this democracy? 2098. Since the creation of the State of Israel it always had significantly more enemies than friends. And every time Israel tries to defend itself against its enemies the body count begins. And if the balance is not in its favor, i.e., less Israelis are dead than their opponents, the "publicity war," which seems to be getting more and more important than the real one, is declared, ad nauseam, to be lost by Israel. Nothing new. For all intent and purpose, the Jews/Israel have lost the publicity war long time ago, 2000 years to be precise, with the advent of Christianity, theologically and historically its worse enemy. (Does anyone kept body count since?) They had to loose six millions to get a reprieve, by no means universal, for several decades. Now, the things are back to "normal." So, no matter what the Jews or Israel do, they have nothing to loose but their eternal misery. By the way, doesn't it sound familiar? Of course, it does. Just like "proletariat has nothing to loose but its chains." The classic example of transference, a substitution of one forsaken group by another. Only an inheritor of accumulated experience of Jewish despair, one by the name Marx, could have put it this way. It runs in the family. So, when Nazis and their antisemitic followers on the Right equated Jews and communism they were onto something. There is a deep affinity at the roots of both –the quest for equality. It is ironic that now Communists and their antisemitic followers on the Left equate Israel with Nazis. O well, logic and hate have never made the good bedfellows. 2099. Some contradictions in Genesis and their consequences. A) From the moment of man's creation, God endowed him with free will, so that man's obedience and worship of God be freely chosen, and not predetermined, and thus having no value. At the same time, God forbade man to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But how can man exercise his free will, which is actualized in actions, without knowing which of these actions are good and which are evil? Hence, the contradiction. B) When God created man and woman he said unto them, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." And then God puts a man, Adam, and a woman, Eve, in Paradise where they are supposed to live forever, unless they disobey. So, how could fruitful man and woman, and their ever increasing number of offsprings populate the Earth, if they are confined to Paradise, which being limited in size, obviously could not eventually contain all of them, if they kept multiplying as God commanded them to do in the first place? So, the only way they could do it is by leaving Paradise. And to do that they would have to break another God's commandment –not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and thus, as a punishment for disobedience, be thrown out of Paradise into the rest of the Earth, which had enough room for them to be fruitful and multiply. Hence, the contradiction – to fulfill one commandment another has to be broken. This also invalidates the so-called Original Sin, the corner stone of Christianity, "For as by one man's [Adam] disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one [Jesus] shall many be made righteous." For God himself put man into position, akin to Catch 22 –you damned, if you do, and you damned, if you don't. So the fault is not with man, but with God. And if God is, by definition, faultless, then man is innocent, free of Original Sin, doesn't need to be washed in the blood of the Lamb, doesn't need Christ, the Redeemer, to be saved, and the whole structure of Christianity collapses, for it is built on sand of contradictions. 2100. At present, the Middle East is the weakest point in the ever precarious dam of world peace, keeping at bay the deluge of the global war. All the major military conflicts are concentrated today in this area, and it doesn't look as if anyone of them is going to be resolved soon, due to the regrettable fact that they all seem to be impervious to the tried and true means of resolving other military conflicts in the past. They are like the unknown disease for which the cure has not been found yet. Also, at present, the Middle East is the weakest link in the global economic chain. Like never before, the world economy depends on oil, and the Middle East is where the greatest concentration of oil supply and proven reserves is located. This convergence of a threat to the world peace and a threat to the world economy in one volatile area, the Middle East, turns it into a double-edged sword, which has to be handled very carefully. Yet, the world cannot allow this sword of Damocles to hang over its head forever. One day it is bound to fall down, which makes it absolutely imperative to do something about it now, before it's too late. But what could be done? The answer is not easy, and it is made even more difficult by the fact that this very region is also the breeding ground for the local and international Islamic terrorism. For, as if the double threat to the world peace and economic health was not enough in itself, into this explosive mixture extra inflammatory ingredients have been added – the militant ideology and murderous practice of jihad and martyrdom. Whatever has been done till now didn't work, or worked at cross purposes. The decisive actions, whatever they may be, necessary to extinguish fires of war in the region, and defeat terrorism locally and globally once and for all, will inevitably impair oil supply and damage the world economy. Not acting would allow the escalation and wider spread of war and terrorism, which will, you got it, also inevitably impair oil supply and damage the world economy. Is it a hopeless case of a Catch 22? It may look so on the surface, but actually it is not. For though in both scenarios, of action or inaction, the oil supply would be disrupted and the world economy damaged, acting promptly and decisively has at least a prospect of securing peace in the long run, while not acting will certainly lead to the dead end, not just figuratively, but literally as well. And since there is no such thing as a free lunch, it is better to have peace with damaged economy (I know it must sound blasphemous), then to have both damaged economy plus absence of peace. Given a choice, albeit unenviable, of two evils, it is a matter of elementary prudence to prefer the lesser one. Of course, jihadist martyrdom seekers are not interested in prudence, elementary or otherwise. And they are going to do their damnedest to make life extra difficult for everybody. They, ultimately, are now the greatest threat to both peace and economy of the world. How many of them are there? It's hard to tell. People in general and Muslims of the Middle East, living in the climate of mob's intimidation and real threat to their lives, in particular, seldom tell the truth when asked about their politics, factual or potential. The actual number of the self-declared jihadists and would be martyrs must be relatively small, but the mudded pool of deception, ambiguities, and equivocations of the Middle East is huge and can potentially provide the fresh recruits for the holy war against the infidels in much larger numbers. So, what are we going to do about them? I, personally, have no idea, and must apologize to anyone who kept reading this article hoping for an answer. At this point, I feel like one who forgot to ask Ariadne for a ball of thread before entering the Labyrinth, so that even the slaying of Minotaur becomes irrelevant, for he wouldn't be able to get out anyway. Am I alone feeling this way? |
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