The Israelis think they are fighting the Palestinians and Hamas. Hamas thinks it is fighting the Israelis. They are not. They are fighting an idea perceived, whether true or false, and given real effects by each of the combatants.
In "Book Thief," by Markus Zusack, the narrator (Death) poignantly informs that soldiers who run off into battle exuberantly think they are running at the enemy when, in reality, they are running into the arms of Death. Killing an enemy does not destroy the idea that inspired its warriors. The idea lives on and the death it brings continues and reinforces the devotion of the survivors to pursue its same purpose. You see, wars fought against enemies are never won, they just temporarily create a momentary cessation of hostility, until we get on with the business of genocide.
An idea cannot be destroyed by killing those infected with it, for the very ideas are endowed and infused with the power by the exponential numbers of its martyred servants. Truly, we sow the seeds of our own destruction if we see the man as our enemy, and not the ideas and ideology that are the engines of his actions. For these ideas corrupt all into believing them, and have forces beyond our own mortalities.
So, kill the ideas and win the hearts and minds of all of your enemies. That is the only way to go. We can run towards our enemies, into the arms of death, and continue the bloody cycle and thereby become as bankrupt and naive as those we think we despise, or we can run toward the evil ideas that enslave them and find peace.
We think we fought the Germans, Italians, and Japanese in WWI. We did not. We fought the ideologies that inspired them to arms. That is why we won. That is why we all won. While we momentarily raged into battle raining death upon our enemies, in the end, when the guns were silent, we set aside our hatred. Instead of burying the living remnants of our enemies, we worked side-by-side with them to bury the remaining remnants of our mutual hatred.
Today, we do not fight the people of Hamas, Isis, Russia, or Al-Qaeda, we fight the evil ideas that embolden them, and necessarily, the leaders who use those ideas to foment fear in order to whip otherwise good people into a frenzy to unleash death and destruction.
Never forget that. Instead of running into Death's arms, run toward the light, toward life, toward peace, even though we may loose our lives to achieve it.
Loren M. Lambert © July 25, 2014
In "Book Thief," by Markus Zusack, the narrator (Death) poignantly informs that soldiers who run off into battle exuberantly think they are running at the enemy when, in reality, they are running into the arms of Death. Killing an enemy does not destroy the idea that inspired its warriors. The idea lives on and the death it brings continues and reinforces the devotion of the survivors to pursue its same purpose. You see, wars fought against enemies are never won, they just temporarily create a momentary cessation of hostility, until we get on with the business of genocide.
An idea cannot be destroyed by killing those infected with it, for the very ideas are endowed and infused with the power by the exponential numbers of its martyred servants. Truly, we sow the seeds of our own destruction if we see the man as our enemy, and not the ideas and ideology that are the engines of his actions. For these ideas corrupt all into believing them, and have forces beyond our own mortalities.
So, kill the ideas and win the hearts and minds of all of your enemies. That is the only way to go. We can run towards our enemies, into the arms of death, and continue the bloody cycle and thereby become as bankrupt and naive as those we think we despise, or we can run toward the evil ideas that enslave them and find peace.
We think we fought the Germans, Italians, and Japanese in WWI. We did not. We fought the ideologies that inspired them to arms. That is why we won. That is why we all won. While we momentarily raged into battle raining death upon our enemies, in the end, when the guns were silent, we set aside our hatred. Instead of burying the living remnants of our enemies, we worked side-by-side with them to bury the remaining remnants of our mutual hatred.
Today, we do not fight the people of Hamas, Isis, Russia, or Al-Qaeda, we fight the evil ideas that embolden them, and necessarily, the leaders who use those ideas to foment fear in order to whip otherwise good people into a frenzy to unleash death and destruction.
Never forget that. Instead of running into Death's arms, run toward the light, toward life, toward peace, even though we may loose our lives to achieve it.
Loren M. Lambert © July 25, 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment