Thursday, February 11, 2010

Defining "Victory" and "Peace"

Barry Rubin of The Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) has produced this brilliant piece - DEFINING "VICTORY" AND "PEACE": HOW THE U.S. AND ISRAEL REJECT GENERAL SHERMAN'S SOLUTION AND GET BLAMED ANYWAY

At the end of the Civil War, Sherman wrote, speaking words that all democratic societies truly feel:

"I confess, without shame, I am sick and tired of fighting-its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands and fathers....It is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ...that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation."

Yet Sherman did not live to see the age of ideological warfare, no matter what the cost to their own people the radicals and Islamists do indeed call for "more blood, more vengeance, more desolution." They do so in the hope that their enemies are "sick and tired of fighting," will do anything to avoid casualties and the "anguish and lamentations," from citizens, and that fools in the enemies' camp blame the continued warfare and suffering on their own side.

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