Who Wants Peace?

I do. But obviously it would take a miracle for the entire world to experience peace at the same time. It's all relative.
And for the Middle East, let's just say at this point it's just not going to happen for a while.
I firmly believe that if someone wants something so bad, they'll find the strength and the courage within themselves to achieve it even if it means having to put up or shut up.
We all know the conflicts in the Middle East open up huge (HUGE) cans of worms and it appears that each time a country steps up to get involved whether to help or attempt to forge resources for economic or political reasons, it never achieves anything relatively positive. Everyone is always viewed from an extremist point of view. Seems like a majority of Arabs today feel like they've been served up an eternal lemon of life and they do not want to make lemonade. They just want to kill anyone who comes in their way. It feels like pages from the bible have been exhumed and reenacted into history again. I mean come one already.
Take this recent editorial from Shimon Peres. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/06/08/2003364361
Good, rational commentary. (I couldn't agree more on the part about Iran's motives to increase influence in the Middle East. ) But I bet if a non-Jewish Arab or Anti Israel were to comment, this piece would get reamed. It's like a dead-end marriage. Constant bickering and no one comes close to an amicable agreement. The goal towards peace is gone. Point is, biases are starting to build up. Even I find myself these days fighting to suppress opinions that border on prejudice against Arabs because the hardcore ones have so strongly built their own bigoted views on Americans. I'm not perfect but at least I make an effort not to act on them. All this madness about how the U.S. has been getting unnecessarily involved in the Middle East may be true but I think it's secondary to the real reason that alot of Arabs are blinding themselves with old grudges. And don't get me to elaborate further on sectarian conflicts. That's a whole other blog entry to struggle with. The frightening conclusion is that achieving peace seems to mean an entirely different thing in the Middle East.

What for democracy?

Here's what it comes down to. In a year, America will be electing a new president. This president will bear the biggest burden of responsibility in easing the country out of this huge mess in the Middle East. More soldiers will die, more people will die and oil prices will fluctuate like a mother. Americans will get blamed more. And for what. It's sad that our country is in this mess that's been going on for centuries. And it's substantially more tragic to see the reality that a majority in the Middle East still just can't hold their peace. Do the Iraqi majority really want democracy? Seems like for a time, Saddam Hussein had sectarian violence fractionally under control. But he was a dictator and did get his hands bloodied by killing many innocents while in the process of quelling unrest. Now that he's gone and the U.S. military has gotten involved, we might as well have painted bullseyes on our soldiers' foreheads. Look at Lebanon. After 20 years, they're at it again. Last summer's war is proof that there are more people living there who have no strength in upholding economic or social progress, undecided and at the brink of another civil war. Two years after Hariri's murder, their government is deadlocked into moving towards a tribunal that was supposed to prosecute those involved in his untimely demise. Let's see what it's government and divided people will do next to set the country back another twenty years when elections come around. As for Palestine, Hamas and Fatah just broke their truce again. So far eighteen Palestinian people died after three days of fighting and Israel was also taunted into this clash by causing an airstrike since it took place along their border. People here are so disillusioned that it's futile to hope that this eye for an eye strategy is clearly doing excessive damage. This is not a holy war. This is about power and the use of religion to proliferate propaganda over nothing more than a struggle to shift power to other selfish politicians. Sad it is that Bush and Cheney arethe worst people to carry out diplomatic missions on our behalf but one thing's for sure. These men don't have a mind sick as that of Ahmadinejad who will twist things around to benefit his agenda. Yes, his agenda. What makes me so ill that the Muslim community is blind to his politics. Doesnt anyone see his predominantly Shiite agenda? He is Shiite, people. Who doesnt see Iran's involvement in smuggling arms to Iraqi insurgents and to Hezbollah(who are predominantly Shiite) in Lebanon? Iraq's future will literally disintegrate if it fails to make a decision on its alliances. They dont have to love Americans; they just have to understand that we are not out to get them the way Iran has plans to manipulate and conquer them. I dont see Iran proactively helping to quell the violence in Iraq. Did they deploy troops trying to quell the sectarian divide? NO. This concludes my latest entry. No disrespect to Shiites on my last comment. But anyone like Ahmadinejad who has a lofty agenda and is Shiite is highly likely to take advantage of his religious status to gain votes. In the end, if Shiites continue to follow him blindly, they'll realize he is no longer the man for the masses like he originally claimed.

The ceasefires do not hold

Fatah and Hamas are at it again. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070515/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians

But not surprisingly, Israel gets dragged into this ruckus because fights broke out along their border and now they too are part of the conflict.

The ceasefire collapsed between the two Palestinians parties but is back on again. http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/05/14/palestinians.cease.fire/index.html

Now Israel is exchanging bullets with Hamas. http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/05/16/mideast.ap/index.html

Who knows how long it will last.

It's interesting that the collapse of the ceasefire between Hamas and Fatah didn't get enough press as that of Israel's retaliation even though Israel didnt start it to begin with.