Where are we going and what are we doing in this handbasket?

This may unfortunately become a stream of consciousness post. I'm getting kind of freaked out and succumbing to my pet conspiracy speculations regarding stuff in the Middle-east. Sharon and his new party were on the path to what seemed like the best hope of peace for Israel and Palestine. It was shocking to hear that Israel, so typically arrogant in their attitude towards the plight of Palestinians would send soldiers to clear their own people out of colonies in Palestinian territories. It was such a risk for Sharon to take with the high possibility of it becoming his political suicide. And now what? Sharon conveniently suffering two strokes and being incapacitated and out of the picture.

Take this and then within a couple of months the Palestinians elect Hamas into control of their parliament or whatever it is that they have. Hamas, regarded in this country as a terrorist organization, after gaining control of their legislature announced that they do not acknowledge Israel's right to exist and inferred that they would take military steps if necessary to eradicate it.

Then there's Iran. Iran determined to get nukes and making threats at the UN, EU, and US if they should interfere. Huzzah.

Now there's this bloody cartoon thing. After riots, people dead, and embassies burned I thought the issue might wind down. But no. Not at all. Now we have politicians in India and Pakistan offering rewards for the death of the cartoonists and more and increasing demonstrations against more and more Western countries and their embassies. There have been three days of demonstrating in London. Protests in friggin' London!

And all the while we as a nation are still engaged in two wars. The last I heard on Afghanistan was that the Taliban have taken to using the rather effective terrorist tactics of the so-called Iraqi insurgency. They in combination with tribal groups have been chipping away at the Afghan government in rural areas by bombing schools and assassinating mid-level government officials.

Okay, so I don't have much of a point. I guess I'm just observing a little thing called escalation. There doesn't seem to be anything turning the tide away from more and more senseless violence. I can only presume that we're going to see more terrorism at home as well as abroad. I fear we'll see things get much worse before they get better.

If my rambling doesn't make any sense try this article: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/20022006/325/afghan-cartoon-protesters-threaten-join-al-qaeda.html