What a Mess

The Cold War ended in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union took place on December 25, 1991. Shortly thereafter, Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan completed their book Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. We are now in a time of crisis with a “war” between the nation of Israel and an organization called Hezbollah. To date, the Hezbollah are holding their own to perhaps to the great surprise of the Israelis.

Sagan and Druyan wrote that in spite of the end of the Cold War, the world was not “home free.” They explain: “New dangers edge their way onto center stage and old familiar ones reassert themselves. We are confronted with a witches’ brew of ethnic violence, resurgent nationalism, inept leaders, inadequate education, dysfunctional families, environmental decay, species extinctions, burgeoning populations, and increasing millions with nothing to lose. The need to understand how we got into this mess and how to get out seems more urgent than ever.” Fifteen years later that quotation is as fresh as it was when the ink was drying on the pages of that book.

This “war” in the Middle East is a mess. So many unnecessary deaths, so much property lost, so much of two nations’ economic systems destroyed and with what final outcomes? The Sagan/Druyan words have as much merit today as they did when they were written. Somehow though I wish it would be otherwise, I believe that little will change in the next fifteen years. The Middle East will remain in turmoil.

The sons and daughters of the present Hezbollah will carry their torches of freedom ever forward. They will desire nothing less than the destruction of the Israeli nation.  Israel may win this “war” which is but a big battle; the true war is yet to come