Here
is an article which is now seven years old. It is about something which
is all over the news again, the Isreali-Palestinian Peace Process.
This is the worst thing I ever wrote. It is full of undeveloped ideas.
It lacks focus and there never really seems to be a point. It lacks structure
and it over simplifies a complex world issue of which I had very little
knowledge. That being said I typed this damn thing out so somebody better
read it.
I would like to remind of all of you that I was a Political Science major
in college and therefore speak with absolutely no authority on anything
to do with politics or peace. Let the words take you back to the first
year of the Clinton Presidency. When Monica was still in high school and
I was still drinking underage. Remember those golden years when Star Trek
the Next Generation was still on and the only gay people on broadcast television
were on PBS.
There is No Profit
in Peace
There it was on my television.
A moment of world shattering consequence brought to me and millions of
others around the world in life like color. The signing of the Israeli-Palestinian
Peace Plan. Two men who, if they had met just a month earlier at a cocktail
party probably would have force fed one another cocktail weenies till the
other choked, were now signing the mother of all peace agreements. And
the world rejoiced; for the most part.
Those who weren't rejoicing
were all of those hopeful profiteers. Men and women who were now going
to be losing rather than making money off the tensions which have so long
been the norm in the Middle East. All those diplomats, arms dealers, and
terrorists, who were making a pretty penny off of the tensions of an area
of the world which made Bosnia look like a playground for so long. What
are these proud attaché carrying workers going to do now? Where
will they put all that nervous energy that used to go into making a better
hand grenade? Where will those stout hearted spokespersons go who used
to give out those threats of violence so vividly? What of those young American
Diplomats who dreamed of being able to sign a book deal after they solved
the problems of the Middle East?
If you think about it,
with the outbreak of peace around the world profit margins for all of those
arms dealers have gone down. With the fall of Reagan's "Evil Empire" and
the beginning of the end of those nasty boarder skirmishes in the Middle
East and Africa, what is left for the men in the dark sunglasses to do?
You can't exactly get rid of plastic explosives as though they were "Play
Dough."
The international community now begins to
shun these once suave and popular examples of how world-wide capitalism
works towards everyone's benefit. Not inviting them to the corporate dinners
or to the daughter of the dictator's wedding, because it would be in poor
taste. Inviting a person who, up until your foreign aid started to come
through, supplied your army with the finest weapons of death ever constructed
and designed in Southern California. The shame of it is these same men
also built all those hospitals your country was so desperately in need
of when it entered into that minor land war with that country next door.
The funny thing was he was also selling those same weapons and building
those same hospitals for the country you were fighting. Funny old business
arms selling and trading, doesn't seem to have the same moral rewards as
farm aid and relief. But as we know our government has never been directly
involved in the supplying of any weapons to any other nation, except during
times of war or national emergency.
As for all of those terrorists,
I could make your typical New York cab driver jokes but I won't, I'll leave
that to Dave Letterman, that's why he gets paid all that money. All these
well trained Palestinians can either move in the Green Movement or move
to two places where terrorism was used to settle religious differences
and still works; Ireland and New York. We might just be seeing a shift
back towards eco-terrorism. The days of sticking metal spikes into trees
to stop logging will be nothing compared to high jacked log flows and the
bombs placed on cargo ships taking timber to the Japanese. All those nightmares
of attacks on sewage trains and landfills will be nothing compared to the
horror of when a truck load of disposable diapers is dumped on the front
steps of the Capitol Building. And after the Irish see how well terrorism
worked in the Middle East, it will be no holds barred against those British
and their dysfunctional Royal Family.
That only leaves what
to do with all those hopeful and aspiring American Diplomats, hell bent
on making a name for themselves off all those world wide conflicts which
seem to be dwindling before their bleary little eyes. I speak only from
the heart on this one because I too want to go out into the world to bring
peace. The point is if all those diplomats really cared about World Peace,
they would be happy now, like I am, regardless of personal feelings and
loss of job opportunity. Perhaps they can all go into health care reform,
that seems to be where all the big government consulting money is going
right now. Maybe, someone could try and get the Democrats and Republicans
in Congress to talk like the Palestinians and the Israelis. Then maybe
we could have peace in the United States instead of riots every time something
goes wrong in our own system of supposed Checks and Balances. Someone could
start on the Peace accord among those Arabs and Jews in this country who
started fighting as soon as the Peace Treaty was signed. Or maybe someone
could just open up a nice hotel on the Gaza Strip for what promises to
be a booming tourist season instead of a bombing terrorist season this
year.
Some closing thoughts
for those of you who don't have enough to about which to think. Yasir Arafat
popular, tanned, and shook hands with Prime Minister Shamir, is he ready
for a guest shot on Letterman. And why hasn't anyone offered airline tickets
to the former Yugoslavia, for those Norwegians who straightened out the
problems in the Middle East. Just don't try and find a profit margin in
peace and we all will be fine. And finally, peace doesn't come from surrender,
but from compromise. I'm glad someone besides me figured that one out.
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