When carnivores such as dogs smell blood, they become
restless because they sense they are about to have a meal. The same is true of
the dogs of war when they sense that blood is about to be spilled somewhere in
the world, and they will have their sadistic desires fulfilled.
They hear the rumbles of war, and they rush to accompany
them by getting on their own drums and playing the beats of war with gusto.
This is a sickness of the human spirit, and the way to cure it is to invite the
drummers to wear the boots of war, and go fight the battles themselves.
This time, thousands of drummers have joined the war
festival, and thousands more will join with the passage of time as the sounds
of war become louder and the smell of blood becomes stronger. Two samples of
what they communicate are discussed in this presentation, one being a piece
written by the editors of National Review Online. It came under the title “Do
More for Iraq ”
and was published on August 8, 2014. Another is an article written by Danielle
Pletka. It came under the title: “Obama's timid steps on Iraq ” and was
published on the website of the American Enterprise Institute on August 8,
2014.
And then, there is a third article written by a level headed
Richard Haass under the title: “The U.S.
needs a more ambitious role in Ukraine
and Gaza ,”
published in the Washington Post on August 8, 2014. In it, the author
recognizes that the situation in Ukraine is dangerous and must be
defused, and so he suggests ways to do that. As to Gaza , he sees that too much blood has already
been spilled, and so he suggests a way to break the vicious cycle that has
rendered this problem so intractable for so long.
The difference between the Richard Haass article and the
other two pieces is that Haass responds to a human undertaking by bringing to
it what is basically a human response. He can do that because he does not see
every conflict as being that of “our side versus the other side.” Thus, he
discusses two conflicts – Ukraine
and Gaza – each
involving sides in which real people have a set of rights and obligations that
clash with those of other real people having a different set of rights and
obligations.
And that approach makes of Richard Haass not a prosecutor
who seeks to bless one side in the conflict while vilifying the other side ...
this being an approach that would inevitably lead him to beat the drums of war.
It does not even make him a judge – though impartial he may be – adjudicating a
case that is too complex to elicit an easy verdict. Instead, it makes him a
conciliator who operates by looking for and identifying the common grounds that
may exist between the sides, and seeking to reconcile between them through
compromise where possible, or by producing new and creative solutions where
necessary.
As to the editors of National Review Online (NRO), they
begin their piece not with a long sentence that would have taken time to write,
but a short phrase that took them directly to the object of their desire: “Two
F/A-18s, two 500-pound bombs.” It is like a child that could not take the time
to unwrap the candy, so he put it directly into its mouth to savor a sweetness
that remained hidden behind the wrapping paper. Thus, the editors of NRO advise
the Obama administration of the following: “It's not an answer to the situation
… but it's a start.”
The old refrain that played the “gathering storm” and
“mushroom cloud” tunes being old stuff, the drummers are currently rehearsing
in preparation to hit the charts with a new refrain. They don't have a final
form for it yet, but you can tell where they are headed when you hear: “This is
a crucial national-security priority … Pinprick airstrikes aren't a substitute
for a strategy … They clearly would like to attack the West.”
Finally, we come to the Danielle Pletka article. You read it
and ask yourself: “What is she saying?” This is what she is saying: “Recall
where this began, in Syria .”
But knowing that it began long before that when America
took orders from World Jewry and went about destroying Iraq , you decide that the article
belongs in the trashcan.
And then, in response to what she calls apologists and
libertarian cohorts, she brings up the subject of other regimes in the Middle
East – that of Hosni Mubarak among them – of which she says this: “those
thrones were teetering thanks to the oppressed people who noticed that the only
parties talking liberation are the Islamist Shiites and Sunnis from Hezbollah,
Hamas and al Qaeda et al."