Raging again from Liberal Street Fighter
“He is the strongest and the weakest . . . To be violent is to be weak. Violence has no mind.
Is it not wiser to seek a man’s love than to desire his swift defeat?” – Master Kan
We live in a time beyond reason, or reasoning. No debate, no diplomacy worthy of the word, only mindless spasms of wanton violence. We Americans, supposed lovers of peace and champions of democracy, have already destroyed a country that did no harm to us, and now we are rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel …
… which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.
The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.
The munitions that the United States is sending to Israel are part of a multimillion-dollar arms sale package approved last year that Israel is able to draw on as needed, the officials said. But Israel’s request for expedited delivery of the satellite and laser-guided bombs was described as unusual by some military officers, and as an indication that Israel still had a long list of targets in Lebanon to strike.
No rush to open discussions, but instruments of death? WE’RE YOUR PUSHER!!! How much death do you need to deliver, Israeli friends of ours?
We are mad, they are mad, we are the damned, a team formed of demonic dealers of death: beyond reason, beyond mind, beyond compassion. For agents of violence such as Israel and ourselves, mere law has no power, no sway … laws are gossamer threads that are beneath two nuclear powers gone mad.
The way of violence has no mind, and we and Israel will react with incomprehension as more and more of the world’s citizens turn against us, turns us into pariah nations even more than we are now. We have no minds left to listen, or comprehend, or even react to all of the gathering warning signs that the belligerence demonstrated by our two countries will reflect back upon us with a vengence. Of course, there are principled people in both countries who’re horrified by what our governments are doing, but the insanity of the political ecology of the US and Israel renders us all-but mute, dragged along behind war machines, our voices of protest drowned out by the pounding and melting and flashing and bleeding and screaming jets and roaring assault helicopters and the screams and pleas of dying civilians.
OUR way of violence has no mind, and the great innovations of humankind’s climb out of the blood and the mud … the systems of law and government developed over centuries of struggle and compromise … have been crushed by an authoritarian movement of bloody-minded radicals, jingoistic monsters consumed by greed, bigotries and religious fervor.
The spreading violence has no mind, and the mindlessness will keep on killing.
Update [2006-7-23 2:41:54 by Madman in the Marketplace]:
Marisacat has more, with trenchant links:
MSNBC was very careful earlier today to explain that ‘’cleanse” was a word that IDF and Israeli government spokes people were using to describe actions in the South of Lebanon.
I heard a former IDF officer use the word “blitzkrieg” myself during CNN’s war porn today.