And there were wars and rumors of war

Just in case my great grandchildren wonder, Yes, we did see it coming… and Yes, we did do nothing. Just like our grandparents before us.

When I was a kid growing up in the shadow of the nuclear power plants of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, with a mother who loved to say (with a definite thrill) that it was not a question of IF the Reds were coming, it was a matter of WHEN the Reds would come… the events of WWII were already outdated, archaic, old fashioned. To put it short, they were in black and white.

In college years a more analytical eye was cast on the European rubble and we questioned our parents and grandparents, Why didn’t anyone do anything early on to stop Hitler? What were all of you thinking? The answer was clear, until it was too late they were thinking quite simply that if they ignored him he would go away of his own accord. Burn out in the exhaust of his own rage.

History book writers make it all look so clear and logical, the signs of the times, the signals that the world was on the brink of another world war. But the people going about their daily business in the middle of it all didn’t know how big a part of history they were making.

Since 2003, or was it 2001, (or 1990, or 1963, or already in 1947 when the rubble of European cities was still smouldering) that WWIII started? Einstein was wrong. He said that any war fought after WWIII would be fought with sticks and stones. So far we are a long way from blowing up the planet in one long crescendoing arms race. No, we are developing new levels of cleverness in warfare. Not in technology but in semantics. Not in strategy but in rhetoric. We do not go to war these days, we go on peace keeping missions. We do not invade to kill, we invade to advise. Our technology and strategy is the same as always: take our young, our strongboned young, our prime of life flesh and blood, line them up, shoot them down.

Respond to their demise with eyebrows crooked as question marks. Report their numbers like so many unforseen traffic accidents. We have five dead Norwegians. We have 15 dead NATO troops (don’t worry about what the word “troops” actually means, we’ve changed that too) this week.

Buy your news coverage from a PR firm.

Politicians proclaim that a veiled woman shall not be seen on the streets of our free land, while third generation immigrants search for their roots with fanatical zeal and arrogant ignorant journalists fuel fanaticism’s fire.