If you need to blame anyone for this vent, you can blame those ever-present pundits. These are the folks who every day offer us their wisdom with such certainty. And, as they do, they also ask us to ignore their truly astounding track record of being consistently wrong no matter their subject de jour... If you doubt me, these are the same people who supported the Iraq war and who uniformly predicted the demise of Donald Trump and Ben Carson within weeks of each declaring his candidacy...
So, here's my question to the pundit class:
How do you declare war on an idea – or on a misguided belief?
As many suggest, do you send in the troops to destroy the believers? Do you reduce their homes to rubble? Do you kill their parents, children and friends – and those innocents who happen to be their neighbors?
Does anyone SERIOUSLY believe that ANY OF THEM will then abandon their ideas and become good citizens of the world? Is it possible that it will instead make them even angrier and more determined to double-down and embrace their ideas even more passionately?
Take a wild guess...
And before you rush in to take the pundits' advice and deploy 50,000 young men and women (of course, as long as they are not your children or spouses), and before you load bombs on your bombers, consider this…
- As anyone who was raised Jewish will confirm, no atrocities committed against the Jewish people either in Israel or elsewhere will ever persuade the Jewish people to abandon Judaism or Israel… No, not a chance... It'll never happen...
- As anyone who was raised Christian will confirm, neither the bombing of Christian churches nor the murder of their leaders will ever persuade Christians to abandon their faith… No, not a chance... It'll never happen...
That said, why would ANYONE believe that the bombing and killing of Islamic fundamentalists (who are anyway prepared to kill themselves for their crazy beliefs) will persuade them to abandon their faith – and not to detonate their suicide vests? And why would ANYONE believe that, for everyone we kill who has surviving parent or child or friend or acquaintance, their surviving parent, child, friend or acquaintance would NOT support those who offer to avenge their loss?
If any of you believe any of this, I have a bridge I'd like you to consider buying from me... Incidentally, I take only cash...
That is why I have such a sense of dread… I don't see this as ever ending...