Any topic can lead to universals

It's not hard to see a leap in subject matter when you go from Indian films to the Iraq war because India's history is littered with conflict between Hindus, Muslims and other religious groups.

I wanted to keep this Blog in the realm of personal perspectives, yet also factual and balanced but it's hard because I have strong feelings about war. The real reasons for this war are lost in a fog of propaganda from all sides. Every day innocent people are dying.

The United States had no business attacking Iraq.

I had hoped as a people we had grown beyond using violence as a means to get what we wanted.

When I watch Indian films, the recent (1948) Indian war of independence from Britain is reflected in the subtext or is even the topic of many films.

For the U.S. we seem to forget that when we came here as colonists we were welcomed by the native population. What did they get in return? We took their land; we killed them or transported them to uninhabitable lands. We took away their language and their culture. It seems that every country has a history of genocide of a targeted population; even India has a poor history with many native tribes.

But this behavior wasn't new, Europe had been exterminating or relocating various ethnic or religious groups for centuries. What the Germans did to Gypsies, the "imperfect", and the Jewish population was not new.

While I respect Muslims for wanting to keep their culture from being westernized, I deplore the violent means by which they attempt to achieve it. Yet, from their perspective, they are defending themselves from violence. Just as the Irish have tried to expel the British, the Palestinians-- the Israelis.

Even in recent US history, "American" militiaman, Timothy McVeigh, bombed a government building, killing hundreds as an act of revolution against the U.S. government. Why didn't the government gather up all the young white Caucasian males as terrorists?

I seek a logical application of justice but often it is just an illusion.

I get the impression that if males were left to their own devices we would all live in fear of violent gangs who thrive on disruption of civil life. You see it in Russia, South America, Central America, Mexico. We saw it in Bosnia and Slovenia, and even in the United States. We are becoming a world of thugs rather than a world of statesmen and stateswomen.

Will the next generation be able to bring us out of the "Dark Ages?"