By Dean James Loomos
So, here we are again — innocent civilians taking the bloody brunt of failed peace efforts in the Middle East. If it wasn’t so tragic, the primitive military-political chest-thumping would be pure comedy of terrors. Yes, yes, I know, it’s all very complex — and Time Magazine has gone the distance to explain all this to us. One side preens with righteousness while the other claims just revenge... and vice versa. Back and forth — sparse little of the latter — for decades now with the end result sadly the same: Unarmed civilians die in the crossfire of warfare — if one can call it that — on both sides. Whole family lineages wiped out in the name of ideological superiority and territorial imperative. Whipped up hatred, power mongering expediency and armed-to-the-teeth militarism are being unleashed in a dust storm of 21st century idiocy. Does the horror of Picasso’s “Guernica” never quite sink in?
I say let these wild-eyed warriors in waiting duke it out on the vast desert flatlands that surround their trigger-happy temperaments. Like the epic battles of yore, mano-a-mano — stripped of warbirds, rockets, artillery and weapons of mass destruction.
Let the leaders of both sides lead the charge and witness first-hand the consequences of their decisions to court violence over compromise; hatred and vengeance over harmony and peace. When they’ve had enough — the lives and homes and institution of their citizenry having been spared — let these warriors of fruitless acrimony settle in tents and Quonset huts as far as the horizon stretches. There to lick old wounds and tell their war stories, far from the ear and eye of peace-loving civilians.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 4, 2006. Read the original PDF.