TRUCE Do you believe the truce we have this morning this morning in Lebanon will “take hold” and actually stop the fighting for a time?
You are expected to “take sides”. Speak up. Part of our being American is to insist on our being honest about our feelings concerning such matters which do so much to determine our future way of life.
I was thinking even down to these words how silly it must seem to many people that I, one old man among millions of people, a non-person really. Who cares what he thinks? Who gives a hollow hoot in Hell what he feels to be “right” or “wrong” about an event happening half-way around this whirling world?
It is the overall accumulation of what each and everyone of us professes to be which comes to typify what world citizens that Americans are or ought to be. We are worthy of seeming to be an example unto others only insofar as we respect ourselves.
Your feelings about how well this temporary truce between the factions immediately associated with it – the Hezbollah militia and Israel – are surface aspects of the problem but the real cause of it all - Syria, Iran and Lebanon. We all know that to be true, yet we hesitate to accuse them and be said to be causing an even widen conflict which already has a name – The Third World War. In the judgment we make we, perhaps unconsciously, include such added information. We are honest with ourselves which leads to accuracy however unpleasant it may prove to be.
A great deal of serious effort has formed basic elements of this latest truce effort. Diplomatic skills of the finest caliber have been widely used. Only time will tell if it was he real thing.
State your opinion and stand by it as long as you know it to be valid.
Very often, what you think is the real you. What you say determines what others think you are.
Speak up. Be real.
Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 8-14-06 [c351wds]
