Missile, missile...My Kingdom for a missile!

Let’s see: Genocide in the past in the past, say, 130 years has seen the industrial world sit back as if nothing was going wrong. The alarming rate at which this seems to happen around the world has to be telling us something about human nature. Why do we tend to “look the other way” especially when our so-called friends and allies engage in such a practice? Hell, why do we turn and look away when not-so-friends and enemies do it?

When I see the “civilized” societies of the post-industrial era embark upon a genocide, I must believe there is some commonality in their motives. Indeed, there are perhaps three commonalities in this situation. The first would be ownership of real estate. The second might be simply a matter of exceptionalism, including what is thought of as religious war of jihad. The third certainly could be for reason of some economic gain. These three are neither mutually exclusive, or in any order of priority or hierarchy. A thread in these commonalities seems to be one of “entitlement”. One example of all three commonalities would be that of Turkey’s genocide of the Armenians. The German genocide in the middle of the last Century might fit well into all three, as well. The genocide, aka “ethnic cleansing”, after the break up of Yugoslavia at the end of the last Century fits neatly into the “exceptionalism” category.

There are hundreds more examples all across the Globe during this time span; these are but three. Which leads me to the economic reasons for waging a genocide, and a timely question of whether the Palestinian – Israeli war which has gone on for sixty some odd years is more economically based than either exceptional, or a simple land grab. I must admit that when I hear of Dick Cheney sniffing around the edges of a messy conflict the red flags start popping up at an alarming rate. There is either a gut feeling, or a base of knowledge, that points to a mother load of oil sitting beneath Palestine. The ageless Cheney wouldn't be anywhere near this hot-spot if there wasn’t a potential of vast amounts of money to be made from drilling rights. Oh, did I forget to mention that it is rumored Halliburton (Cheney’s other person-hood) has, or will sign contracts for drilling right in the West Bank.

My major problem with this end of the Palestinian – Israeli war is that the land being leased to Halliburton by Israel actually belongs to Palestine (Take a look at the maps on the historical shrinking of Palestine since 1949.) My second major problem with this is that the industrial Nations have let this go on, unchecked, since 1949. Our modern day, democratic governments have been fueling the fire by engaging in Arms and Technology “sales” to Israel to defend itself from a people whose land they are stealing. If you can make rational sense of that, you’re good.

So, let’s truly think of the act of genocide as we witness the annihilation of the Palestinian people while the “developed” Nations fiddle and Rome burns.