Middle East: Hard Problem

Today we can read in the NYT about the coming war in Lebanon.

I remember reading during the seventies, when I was a student in California, about the terrible Lebanese war. Actually the modern crisis in the Middle East started with the establishment of Israel after the Second World War. To me, this is looking more and more, like the beginning of a worldwide bottleneck for humanity, I explain:

First a little aside, in 2666, you can read about a low intensity war in the US-Mexico border in Ciudad Juarez. Today Tom Friedman writes about how Mexico has a bright future; it will take more than his usual positive outlook to convince me, though. I see another low intensity war in the streets of Chicago, where boys as young as ten sometimes carry guns, and Harper High School students are killed.

We have a hard human problem, when people are displaced, because young men with powerful weapons are killing each other.Whenever I move into a new neighborhood, I walk around to get the feeling of safety near my house. Here in Warrenville, I feel safe, the only problems I have are with my immediate family, sometimes we do not agree, but that is manageable.

With this aside out of the way, I look into the Middle East.

Agriculture around wheat started in Mesopotamia, for several thousand years now, people in that part of the world, have been fighting each other, brother against brother, like in the biblical tale of Cain and Abel. Modern Cain & Abel do not even know they are siblings! The difficulty resides in the global character of the conflict. Cell phones and cyber attacks are part of this new version of an old family quarrel. These young men, have powerful weapons to destroy their brothers, and no wisdom to use them. Starting at December 18, 2010, we have the so-called Tunisian revolution. Now the revolution moved to Syria, and already moved to Lebanon. First young men and their families moved to Lebanon, later they will come to the Chicago area, like they did twenty two years ago.  There is plenty of water in this part of the world, but also plenty of brotherly hatred. Latin Kings against black gangs, and fights inside ethnic groups, besides.

This is why I consider this a hard problem, because I do not see a solution and it affects ME!