Before I get too deep into this composition, let me wish all of you out there a happy and blessed holiday season! I was hoping to bring you a light and “cheery” story to go along with this time of the year. Many people look forward to these last three months of the year because it involves family get-togethers, interactions with members of those that you work with, and, in general, a lot of happy and memorable times. This is a relatively easy thing to do if we do not have anybody close to us facing life-threatening issues and/or situations. I started out this morning wanting to compose a salute to the season but made the mistake of turning on the news as I was making my coffee.
Now, most of you (who keep up with current affairs) can probably guess what hit me in the face and seared scenes of hate and horror into my mind. The FOX channel was talking about what was going on over in Israel (and Gaza) and how they are tied in with large groups of Palestinian sympathizers protesting both in Europe and in our United States. We have all seen graphic pictures and videos of what happened to those civilian residents of south Israel, and most of the news companies have been kind enough to keep the truly heinous (and horrendous) views from the general public.
I was asking myself, “What kind of person (or persons) would do such things to another human being?” The answer was found in another thought that came quickly to me. This is hate and evil being used (again) as implements of war. There is a book that speaks of war, tactics of war, and the intended results of said methodologies in these arenas. The book is named “The Art of War” (by Sun Tzu), and it has been the bible (or main instruction manual) of many leaders of armies not just in the far eastern countries but all around the world. Striking fear into the hearts of their opponents is as tactical a procedure as is lining up your infantrymen, your cavalry, artillery, (and now in modern warfare) air, sea and space support. Most of the time, combatants would adhere to tactics that follow certain moral and ethical standards. To go against these “ways of warfare” is to go against a set of rules laid out years ago in what is now referred to as “The Geneva Convention.”
After World War 2, there was a tribunal of world judicial appointees that tried (and even sentenced to death and executed ) military leaders and civilians for the atrocities that they had done during that great and terrible war. Now, Israel is a small country, but it has a strong history of winning military battles since its inception in the middle of the last century. In my opinion, I feel that the terrorists of Hamas saw just how valuable hostages can be as deterrents and items of barter. It just came to my attention that the last big hostage “play” that was used as military leverage was those Americans at the American Embassy in Iran. I am sure that without those hostages in this oversized chess match, the Israeli Defense Force would have made quick work of ridding that area of the “human varmints” called Hamas.
To me, Hamas is a societal lifestyle that is reminiscent of a combatant people living in the dark ages. We, as a refined people living in this 21st century, see these actions that were perpetrated on those Israeli kibbutz non-military citizens as being inhumane an totally barbaric. But then again, the Hamas soldiers were told to mow down their own people who were just trying to seek refuge away from the combatants.
In recent days, I have heard and seen the “mail order protestors” demonstrating in the streets of France, Great Britain, and, of course, the United States of America, and I have to ask, “Are some of these people on the streets the same pay to play protestors that carried large, expensive signs and banners for ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter? I would be willing to go as far as to say that if you pulled some of those young fanatics aside and asked them what it is that they see happening that prompts them to gather “en-masse” and promote domestic violence, they would probably spew some mantra that was rehearsed fresh off of the hate-filled pages of the internet. But then, this should not surprise us because we, as a conservative-leaning and mostly Republican people, have seen this play out with the political cover-ups in the days right after the last election cycle. I guess that when a large part of society is brought up without Christian morals, underhanded, despicable, and evil tactics will again be used as tools of those despots trying to force their ways upon modern society.
Steve Goodwin is a recently retired Christian conservative veteran (of the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division), who still feels that “duty to country” did not end when the military uniform got hung up. He and his wife Cecelia live on the edge of a beautifully wooded tract of land just south of the bypass, and are involved in not only church activities, but also attend school board meetings and local community action events as well.
