Friday, August 04, 2006

Let's play a game

    On the second or third day of the war, Nasrallah called Olmert and said, "Let's play a game."

    Olmert licked his combover and said, "what game?"

    Smiling to himself, Nasrallah brushed his beard. "Let's play - who has the biggest "juevos"."

    "Ha!" Olmert couldn't control his excitement. "You're on!"

Okay, okay everybody. Don't jump down my throat at the same time. Of course I'm not comparing a democratically elected leader to... well... I'm not even sure. And yes, yes, Hezbollah started it and Israel is right. Whatever that means. Like I care about this now.

But my point is this. Since the first few days where Hezbollah proved they're not a force to be trifled with and Israel proved, regained some of its deterrence, this war was all about that game. There was no point to the war after that. None!

Now Olmert and Peretz decided to continue with useless, pointless aerial strikes. More Lebanese are dead.
Hezbollah continues with its daily rocket barrage on Israel. More Israelis are dead.
(I'm not bringing the "numbers", you already figured I hate algebra in this context from my previous post, and besides, news sites report this.)

Israel said they would stop if Hezbollah returns the kidnapped soldiers. Why didn't Hezbollah do that?
Hezbollah said they would stop rocket firing on Israel if Israel stops aerial attacks. Why wouldn't Israel stop then?
I guess the game is still on. I guess the people are just pawns. Sacrificed easily.

I asked my brother-in-law today how long can men play this type of game.
"Men?" he said with utter disgust. "There's not a man among them."

Categories: , ,

4 comments:

So_Far said...

I totally agree with your brother-in-law. Yes it is a game, almost the same Greeks and Turks play everyday over the Aegean sea with their planes. I can't find any man in our game either.
I don't know how simple people can help those situations. We just become the victims or the refugees, a good show for the media worldwide.
Although in Greece people say that Israel should not do that against Lebanon, when we discuss it we express this question:" How an organisation declares war against a country?"
You see I never understood the official state of Lebanon. I watch the news and I see the Prime Minister, but I know that this war is between a country ( Israel ) and an Islamic organization(Hezbollah) not against another country and its army. I realized that Hezbollah is something like a political party also. This is completely abnormal. So, yes this is a bad game , organised and planned a long long time ago.
I don't know what else I can say. Try to be as safe as you can manage. Have a safe day!

Anonymous said...

Let s hope that that bad game will be soon over. You re brother in law is right.. this isn t a mens game....
I wish that words had the power to change the world because this is all i can do. I can only write some words to tell that no human being like wars! But who likes them then? Why wars happens all the time?
with love

off line said...

Indeed, the blame game and then the, I'll stop... when he stops..., I ain’t guuna stop… You stop…

Not men and not children...though there are many commonalities in the logic of the fight. I wrote a little piece titled, “When Kids Fight,” which is based on my experience raising two sons, two years apart, and having to mediate between the two. It’s ridiculous. I’ll post the piece on my site.

So_Far makes comments that I’ve been thinking about for some time… about “How an organization declares war against a country." It’s become a strange world were countries declare war on ideologies that are not as cut and dry as they sell them to be. In the name of a “War on Terror,” a country goes into another and many from the general population die directly, and then others die indirectly from the pollution created by bombs that goes into their soil and drinking water; and still later, new members are born with birth defects. Where does the ‘terror’ begin and end? Who are the ‘terrorist’? And what makes one side more righteous than the other? And why does your mom make you dress funny? And my dad’s stronger than your dad! Oh Yeah? Yeah!

Please!

I hope you and your family are okay, staying safe. I cringe every time I hear about the bombings, missiles, rockets…

Heart & prayer

Patry Francis said...

A lot of wisdom here, Melly. Be safe and well.