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Friday, September 14, 2012

Some tiny, insignificant, slightly incoherent thoughts...

Maybe I am way off base with this--if I am, please tell me.  But I find it a little strange that 11 years after extremists flew airplanes into buildings on our soil and killed thousands of our civilians, that people in that country are protesting over some insignificant, poorly made movie that has been largely ignored by the majority of our country.  I probably wouldn't have heard of it if it weren't for the mindless violence and protests occurring in the Middle East.  I suppose one could argue that this is the straw that broke the camel's back.  I suppose they believe that we are meddling in their affairs they want left alone.  And I understand that is why many in this country believe we need to withdraw aid from these countries that do not appreciate our help.  And sometimes I kind of agree with them.

But then I remember the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Not the destruction part, the part where God says that if Lot can find just 10 righteous people in the generously populated city, He will spare it.  And I can't help but think that even though Lot was unsuccessful, there must still be good and righteous people in these countries, that do want help and hope for a better and brighter future.  And can we abandon them and dismiss them and demonize them because their countrymen are blind with anger?  When we do that to them, are we any better than the protestors (and terrorists) demonizing all of America for one fool's stupid and ignorant video?

I am not championing war.  War is terrible and complicated and hurtful to all sides.  It breeds the worst in humanity and appeals to our dark sides of greed and destruction.  But it is sometimes necessary, to defend ourselves or others too weak or small to defend themselves.

I don't really have a conclusion to my thoughts other than to echo that war is complicated.  And also scary.  And sometimes I don't know what to think or what is right.  And so I pray that together the human race can overcome this.

4 comments:

Autumn @ Autumn All Along said...

I find it interesting that Obama has completely ignored and blown off the Israeli prime minister, but can make it on Letterman this month.

We live in pretty scary times. I have been telling Devin recently that things can either go up or way down from here on out depending on a lot of political moves.

There isn't a single day on the news that there isn't a natural disaster, talk of a country bankrupting, riots, wars, diseases...

I worked as a news intern my freshman year and the good thing is...there is a lot of wonderful stuff out there too. However, we weren't allowed to put it on air. My boss said fear sold better than warm fuzzies.

SupaFlowaPowa said...

agreed. it's all scary and sometimes I get to thinking about how scary it must be over there - of course they hate America, they have no idea what is going on - they don't have access to the same info and news is just as shielded from them as it is from us, if not more. I dunno - it's all very scary. ahhhh such a depressing post Lauren!

robertandsharon said...

I wonder how much of our generous aid gets to those good people in the countries we assist?

Autumn @ Autumn All Along said...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/12-photos-of-benghazi-citizens-apologizing-to-amer?fb_ref=recbar