Hatred of Israel.

At the risk of sounding too religious, I'll trot out my little theory about Israel and its eternal problem with much of the rest of the world. It's probably something our gray heads like Jimmy, "the Peacemaker," Carter never considered, but the idea merits some small and serious consideration because the land couches at the navel of the world and has forever been a pivot about which the conscience of the old world slued.

I have always believed that as lomg as one Jew remains on the planet there will be hatred focussed on him because of the Almighty's covenant with the "sons of Abraham." It does not matter whether the target of the hatred is a practicing Jew or not, it only matters that God has sworn an oath with one family. It only matters that somewhere in the darkest and most minute reaches of that one person's DNA lies the intonation that the "Lord God is one God, and He is our God," and this causes other people of evil bent to despise him automatically.

From an entirely mundane standpoint, the Jews are a wonderfully adaptable individual race who can scrape a living out of a next to nothing piece of real estate like Israel, and of course, that's got to gall the ones who lived there during the Jewish absence, the ones who did little but subsist and infight and inbreed.

This hatred is cosmic violence that masquerades as fraternal politics, nothing more nor less than covetousness shrouded in a pretense of displacement, envy cloaked in feigned self righteousness.

Of course, the same could be said of the underclass on our own country...but that's a subject for another day.

As yet an improperly defined enemy

As astute as ever, Hansen lays out a wonderful commentary on the current situation, however one thing is omitted from our current discourse, and that is the fact that our enemy and his interests, his modus operandi, if you will has yet to be clearly described by anyone.

In WWII, the enemies had clearly legible goals and borders of encroachment. In the current war, the enemy's motives and goals have never been adequately illustrated by our officials. Because we are so cautious about racism, religious sensitivities, and inherent subtexts of any discussion, we have hamstrung ourselves by refusing to whip up righteous indignation against an enemy we do not clearly understand.

The current administration has dutifully and professionally managed this conflict as a matter of daily business rather than handling it as the crisis it is. Unfortunately, we on the home front still see this as a police action, not a real war.

Until we can accurately define the war as an international conflagration, we are doomed to endless recrimination and hysterical self blame by the left, who by the way roots itself in mainstream media.

Those of us who have seen death and destruction first hand are the only ones who can understand the threat sans benefit of incisive reports from our leaders. The rest are too comfortable with the illusion that we are safe from fanatics.

It is in doubt that our people will realize the true nature of this war until it is too late because we are so confident that no one in his right mind would attack us on our home turf. By then, it may be too late.