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| Too hard basket | |
They say that war is an extension of politics by more honest means. Honest,
perhaps, but apparently not more rational. The Middle East is not well
known for its balanced or rational politics. It is, however,
known for playing the chain-blame-game. In a
conflict going back over two thousand years, both sides can always point to
some atrocity committed by members of the opposing collective, and claim the
moral high ground. Or at
least assure themselves that their god will reward in the afterlife
for killing the worshipers of the false god of their opponents. It stands to reason that if you blow up enough innocent babies and children,
that your god will reward you. Obviously. Sometimes though, one has wonder why pragmatics doesn't override passion. In
particular, one has to wonder about the mindset of a population who would vote
for a government who would support a terrorist organization who launched
rockets and missiles towards an aggressive and more powerful neighbor. Did it
ever occur to these people that their aggressive neighbor might - you know -
like - retaliate at some point? Admittedly Lebanon has had its share of setbacks. Being occupied by both Syria
and Israel for several decades may not have helped them, but since both
occupiers left, things have hardly gotten better. Apart from exporting rape
gangs to Sydney the country hasn't really made much of an impression on the
world stage. Apologists point to model Lebanese descendants in Australia, such as
Victorian Premier Steve Bracks and Aussie Home Loans founder John Symond. It's
not clear why a politician and a loan
shark would be regarded as model citizens, but they are clearly less
undesirable than the likes of Keysar Trad, who seems to spend his time making
up ever more far fetched stories about Sheikh Hilaly's adventures in Iraq. And that's not even mentioning the unemployment
rates of Lebanese Australians. Lebanon really resembles the busted-arsed-countries in the Pacific
which Australia is trying not to re-colonize. Fortunately Australia is too far
away to be called on to 'take responsibility', and so it falls to Syria and
Israel to control the rabble. So far the Israelis have contributed some rockets
and missiles of their own, and stretches of Lebanon close to Hezbollah
strongholds have been bombed back to the stone age in just a few days. Perhaps
they didn't really have much to do. It's hard not to sympathize with babies with limbs blown off, and it's
important to recognize that this affects the lives of individuals - some of
them innocent individuals. But it's also hard to sympathize with a population
collective who has provided succor to a terrorist organization. It's also a little disturbing to see crowds of women with bags over their
heads demanding that the Australian Government evacuate them to Australia
because the ALP gave them
citizenship in more politically
correct times, when Islam was still regarded as a quaint, but harmless culturally
relativistic lifestyle choice. Even when the strife is on the other side of the world, Australia is expected
to be a garbage dump for the world's problems.
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