NEXT!
Quite suddenly, without warning, the Mioian civilization on the island of Crete in the Mediterreanean Sea ceased to be. We have learned much concerning those advanced people of long ago by studying artifacts which remained after erratic series of tidal waves swept over the area. Those waves were caused by a volcano erupting seventy miles away in the Age an Sea on an island know, then, as Thira. Today the fragment of the island remaining is called Santorini and is a favorite site visited by tours of Greece and the Age an Isles, who, by means of donkey ride, climb the ragged wall of the sea- filled crater caused by the historical blast which caused so much horror and destruction so far away...
I think of the situation there centuries ago, and marvel at the fact that, even as I write many existing nations are threatened by others located just a scant few miles away, who seek to harm them, wish them no good will.
Even now another hurricane is sweeping across Cuba, just ninety miles from our southern shores, and we ignore it. We see very little of he storm, in Cuba. The pictures we are shown on TV are mainly from other islands - he Bahamas, The Leewards, and some this morning from Granada,. But none for the largest island of them all - Cuba. That island and the people there have been held hostage by Dictator Fidel Castro for many years and in time, there may well be a test of strength to see how the governmental ideas and ideals of communism and those of our own, capitalist society evolve when they face each other.
V. Putin, in Russia, is at a most critical time in his task of attempt to get rid of the problems caused by tiny but troublesome acreage of Chechen holdings in the southeast section of his economically bled nation. The situation has been made even more this past week by the massacre of hundreds of Russian school children. For doing so Vladimir Putin brands them as being ”terrorists” while our own media continues to call the “political activists”
Other nations see nearby pocket of enmity at work. In Iraq's northern area there are many Kurds who do not see things the same way as the new government. The Kurds of east Turkey bordering on those in Iraq. have long been at odds with Turkish authority. North Korea holds such a threat, but on a larger scale.. Lebanon longs to be freed from twenty-eight years of domination by Syria. One wonders which of these smoldering hotbeds will burst into flame at any moment.
We have more warnings today that did the people of Crete for they had no word that a walls of sea water would sweep them out of the pages of active history and drop, them withered and sere, into annals of archelogical data.
There is are some little bursts of sunlight from-time-to-time, such as a the sudden turn-around by Moomar Quadafe who has decided that he will forego trying to match nuclear war weaponry by agreeing to destroy his nuclear-war capabilities. Fidel could go out of history smelling like the rose he isn't he could bring himself to – like Moormar is doing in Lybia - switch from changing hating to loving America. That's a situation which illustrates so well the deep trouble they are in. Castro is not about to make such regenerative confession any more than others are ready to disavow war to gain their supposed ends. We have no idea from which direction the next attempts to harm us might come.
At the moment, many of our leaders are on the fence regarding V.Putin's strong words. Few are willing to endorse his statement about the need to become more firm dealing with “terrorists”. He may well have set some some new standards for all of us by doing what our old folks used to call - “by calling a spade a spade.”
A.L.M. September 7, 2004 [c673wds]
