Shit hitting multiple fans in Middle East

Mikaela:
Let's all take a moment of silence for escalating tensions and death tolls in the Middle East. Israel lies at the center of multiple conflicts -- with Lebanon and Palestine. Iran is fanning those flames. The U.S. continues to heat up the rhetoric against Iran for its purported nuclear program and blames Syria for harboring the terrorists who captured Israeli soldiers. Iraq violence has spiked dramatically in recent days. Bombs on all sides are killing people.

Photo courtesy bbc.com

Washington Post has an illuminating analysis, although I question the underlying assumption that Iran is the main problem and pivotal solution in all these cases. There's no mention of Israel's acts that have made things much worse, and there's not much history given of Lebanon (see BBC link above for that).

The basic conclusion of the story -- that the U.S. is in a poor place to negotiate any peace in any of the conflicts -- seems right on (and scary). Of course, solutions that involve the U.S. extricating itself as the perpetuator of conflicts due to its unwanted presence are also not mentioned. Still, I found the piece a good and fast outline of a complicated and interconnected danger.

Israel has sent troops into Gaza and Lebanon over three captured soldiers -- one held by Hamas in Gaza and two seized yesterday by Hezbollah in Lebanon. The United States and its allies set a collision course with Iran over its nuclear program. And there is mounting concern that Iraq's sectarian violence is crossing the threshold to a full-blown civil war.

If anyone sees good non-American-centric analysis of these conflicts, please pass on the link. I'm hoping to understand what roles other countries have that might bode well for intervention or leverage to broker negotiations.

The cynical part of me wonders if this isn't the exact situation -- brink of all-out Middle East war -- that Cheney & Cabal have angled for all along. I'm sure the oil execs. have an adrenaline high. "Prices will spike! But can we get the oil out?" Meanwhile, people are dying, and more will die in the days to come.



In these times, I return to T.S. Eliot in the last lines of The Waste Land, which has eerie resonance today, as it was written beween two world wars, when it became clear that the age of reason could still result in world-wide bloodshed (translated for viewing ease):

I sat upon the shore

fishing, with the arid plain behind me.[1]

Shall I at least set my lands in order?

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down

(Then he hid himself in the fire that purifies them.)

When shall I become like the swallow?[2] O swallow swallow

The prince of Aquitainia in the abandoned tower:

These fragments I have shored against my ruins.

Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.[3]

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.[4]

Shantih shantih shantih[5]

Translations courtesy: http://world.std.com/~raparker/exploring/thewasteland/table/explore6.html

http://eliotswasteland.tripod.com/

http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:znTaKr7fdIoJ:www.bootlegbooks.com/Reference/PhraseAndFable/data/45.html+amyclae+silence&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a

Notes below paraphrased.

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[1] Reference to the Fisher King, who is supposed to bring wisdom and fertility but here is shown defeated.

[2] In Greek myth, Philomela and Procne were sisters. Procne married King Tereus, who raped her sister and cut out her tongue to silence her. Philomela weaved her story into some cloth to tell her sister what happened. Procne fed their son to Tereus as punishment. The sisters fled, with Tereus in pursuit. The gods intervened, changing Philomela into a nightingale, and Procne into a swallow. Full quote: Philomela sings, “We are silent. When will my spring come? When shall I be as the swallow that I may cease to be silent? I have lost the Muse in silence, and Apollo [god of war] regards me not. So did Amyclae through being voiceless, perish by its very silence.” Amyclae was a Greek town that passed a law against circulating rumors of impending attack from Sparta because they were causing so much chaos. When Sparta really did attack, they stayed silent too long and were defeated.

[3] From a poem about Spanish royalty crossing and double crossing each other. One promises the other to help get revenge by pretending to be mad so that he can kill (rather like Hamlet).

[4] Give aid. Have compassion. Practice self-control.

[5] Meditation that means: the peace that passes understanding.