What the heck is Victory nowadays?

In the past, victory meant that a national government would surrender and accept the terms of the "victorious party(ies)." The defeated parties would, for the most part, accept the terms and live with them. Groups without sufficient nationalistic fervor or numbers would be likely to get a pretty bad deal, such as Native Americans of North America, or their cultural identity was essentially obliterated (there are no significant Aztec or Mayan populations today, although there are certainly many descendants of the folks that ruled Central America in those years). It seems that religious fervor and intolerance is what it takes to really defeat a "people," along with years of vigorous persecution. Just how long it really takes is another question, but a lot of it has to do with communication, any connection to past culture through art, literature architecture, etc.

While the United States is not free of any guilt when it comes to oppression, in the last century the United States has become a pluralistic and possibly overly tolerant liberalistic nation, which is an anomaly in global history. One can hope that is the next step in nationalistic evolution, or one can say that is an aberration that won't endure. I tend to believe the former, but I admit to a certain inevitable bias regarding the question.

Be that as it may, conflicts at this juncture in history need to be virtually approved by the United States. If the United States disapproves too strongly, it can intercede either militarily or economically (or both), while if it does approve it can ensure that a conflict can drag on. Note how the Russians got bogged down in Afghanistan, and how America is getting bogged down in Iraq. What we have to realize is that revel fighters need supplies to continue their business. The fact that the violence in Iraq is limited to I.E.D.'s and suicide bombings is an indication of the fact that sovereign nations aren't willing to supply Iraqi fighter with the real toys. Hezbollah on the other hand has apparently gotten LOTS of rockets from somewhere, and one has to assume that they have been stocking up for some time.

Modern conflicts take time to prepare for, and a lot of nations have played the game in order to play for time. Assymetric warfare has been used in the past, but modern firearms and explosives have allowed new methods to be used in regional conflicts, such as car bombs, and suicide bombings. What a lot of people fail to accept is the religious overtones of suicide bombers. It's a lot easier to blow yourself up if you think that an almighty being not only approves, but encourages such action. This isn't a nationalistic ideal. It is a cultural and religious ideal, and not one that appears to be on its way out.

There is a culture out there that needs to be faced down and destroyed in one way or another. If we hope to achieve that goal through violenct, the body count is going to need to be a LOT higher. If we hope to achieve that goal through enlightenment, I doubt that victory is acheivable, because that route is seen as weakness.

I don't think that human beings have change so much that victory is no longer achieved in blood, and more specifically the blood of your enemies. There is an enemy culture out there, and it is bent on destruction. Our culture doesn't really care much so long as their culture doesn't inflict pain and suffering on us (and less importantly on others).

What we do have to understand though is that victory may not come in years, or even decades. While the pace of many things in Western Life is very fast, lives are long, and this conflict has been going on for generations, and will likely continue for generations to come, and it will take a lot of blood to end the conflict.

That's historically the case, and I don't see any reason to believe that will change.

It is fascinating how people try to cling to religion, and make sense of modern events in the context of prophetic writings, such as the bible, the Koran, or even the writings of Nostradamus. More interesting is the apparent fixation on Armageddon types of prophecies, and the apparent belief that end of days is upon us now (I suspect that people have always talked about the imminence of Armageddon, probably the Norse were always waiting for Ragnarok).

As far as I know, Judaism doesn’t particularly talk about Armageddon, which makes sense for the most part, since Judaism is actually a relatively “life” focused religion, concerned with our mortal lives rather than the afterlife. Also, since God made a deal with the Jews, why would he want an Armageddon. I’ve seen some commentaries liken God’s covenant with the Jews as similar to a marriage, so an Armageddon would be something like killing off your spouse.

Now, there is a difference between the Koran and the Bible, in that the teachings of the Bible are acknowledged as the writings of men, and are thus open to interpretation since men are imperfect vessels and may not completely understand what it is they are seeing. The Koran is the word of God and dictated by Angels, so is a literal account of what God wanted to say. What is strange here, is by either metric, why is God so vague? And, for that matter, why isn’t God willing to clarify things, either in scripture, or directly to us mortals?

Faith is the final trump card of course. You need to have faith, or God won’t like you. Getting to hear the voice of God is sort of like winning a theological lottery. Getting to hear other voices in your head is generally indicative of some sort of instability. People envy others that get to speak in tongues. For the most part, I tend to agree with Reese from Malcolm in the middle. His advice was “Do not listen to the voices in your head. They aren’t your friends. And don’t tell anyone about them, because if you do, they want to lock you up.” Granted, this may not be sound advice if the voice in your head really is God, but what are the odds, really?

Still, back to Armageddon. It seems to me that people like the idea of Armageddon (I think it crept into Christianity via the Norse Ragnarok, but even Ragnarok has an “and then.”). And the idea of Armageddon coming soon is even better, because then the living won’t miss out on stuff, or at least not on too much. For the most part, I don’t think that people really like to consider their own mortality, and the reality that the world will go on without them. When we die, the world should end after all.

However, when you have a religious belief in Armageddon, there are some rather disturbing possibilities. If you believe that God is directing your actions, and you are in the midst of a struggle between good and evil, all sorts of options become viable. Terrorist action clearly falls into that category, and armed confrontation and open warfare are more easily put on the table. When enough people believe this sort of stuff, it can get very violent. From what I have read, it appears that many Americans believe this, although I have to say I put the belief in the conceit, rather than having a personal mission, or really strong faith/conviction. What I don’t follow is just why it is people would believe that a kind and loving god would preordain Armageddon. This could come down to the “free will” vs. “predestination” problem, but if you do buy into mortals not only knowing the future, but having no ability to change it, sounds to me like Free Will gets the shaft.

Hopefully though, for the foreseeable future at least, those leaders that can unleash truly powerful WMD will remain reasonable, and even if they do, the results will simply be Mass Destruction, rather than global eradication. This is certainly a step up from the days of my youth when us kids worried about the end of human life, rather than the destruction of a city or two.

The funny part is that while the threat may be “smaller” now, the intrusion into private lives is getting a lot bigger. And now we have a “War on Terror” that gets to invoke war powers in a president. Almost Orwellian, eh?

I guess now we are seeing the "or what" with regards to what happens if Hamas doesn't "recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace."

I do hope that this finally puts a stake in the myth that "democratic nations do not attack each other."

I have heard a lot of pundits discussing the why, and the hidden reasons for what is going on in Palestine and Israel of late. Is it a clever bit of ledgerdemain on the part of Iran to buy time in their quest for nuclear weapons? Was it an inevitable result of the balkanization of Lebanon with the overt withdrawal of Syrian forces from the area? Did the Palestinian leaders finally get fed up with being treated like a terrorist group rather than a democratically elected leadership? Did they feel that they needed a bold move to show that they are effective in some way seeing as they can't meet payroll?

I tend to believe that vast conspiracies that benefit governments are rarely true. The Israeli reaction to the attacks and capture of their soldiers was predictable. I'm not sure how such actions can be seen as anything less than an act of war when facing a government who's charter calls for your nation's destruction should be construed. Hamas though isn't willing to roll over in the face of a bigger dog, and so it is biting and clawing even as the bigger dog is shaking it by the scruff. At this point Israel is in a precarious position, since I don't think it is willing to give ANYTHING to Palestine at this stage, since doing such would be seen as a vindication of the use of force. Hezbollah has to be "broken" from the Israeli perspective, because if it isn't, they will simply pull this sort of stunt again.

Now, this isn't to say that Iran isn't going to egg Hezbollah on, and do whatever they can to keep things going. As long as Hezbollah can make strikes, they are showing some sort of strength. Iran does have a problem though, since at some point the Israeli's will move on them directly, and some people have posited that the American Government is egging Israel on to do their dirty work and strike at Iran's nuclear development facilities. I've also heard that the Syrian Government will be put down by Israel soon at the behest of American interests.

It's hard to figure just what is really going on, and I can't imagine that there is any puppet master or cabal out there pulling the strings and making things happen (well, if you believe in God, we can point there, which goes to a whole other sort of frightening line of reasoning given how so many Americans buy into the end of days). I'm thinking now though that the cold war will be seen as the happy times winding down the 20th century. There are quite a few parallels that can be drawn to World War II given the current course of human events. What disturbs me is that the more I see what is going on, the more it looks like we are seeing World War I finally running its course in the Middle East, and if things follow the historical model there, we'll be seeing a pretty bloody war, followed by another bloody war in 20-30 years in the same region.

Bottom line here is that there are plenty of people willing to kill, and willing to die. Europe and American will be drawn in a LOT faster than what happened in WWI, because of Oil. But anyway you slice it, wars go on until one side is tired of killing or tired of dying. The spectre of nuclear war has made it really frightening to the West. The middle East has fought a lot since WWII though, and they really haven't had their knock down drag out.

There is a disturbing reality that goes along with this. It is possible that the same sort of show of force would cut the fighting down a lot the same way it did in WWII in the Pacific Theatre. To some degree, I think that this has been something that a lot of countries simply don't understand about modern warfare, especially the way the U.S. wages it. The U.S. goes out of its way to minimize civilian casualties. If the U.S. ever changed that policy, even for one day, and declared the day of civilian casualties, I'm sure that it would take months, if not years to really count up all the bodies. As ugly as it sounds, it may be the choice that actually minimizes casualties and human suffering.

For most Americans though, well, they should get ready to pay pay pay for their gasoline. I'm wondering just how high gas futures can go.