This week has begun as if it were the opening lines of Homer's Iliad. A terrible war is about to become even more deadly because pundits and politicians sing lyrically about just causes, the need for divine retribution and offences that can only be punished by the mass death of more innocent bystanders.
There is no climb down from this. It is just like in 1914, just like in 2003, and just like every other unnecessary war in our lifetime. The criminal mediocrity of our leadership in all of the capitals of the Western World has led us into this cul-de sac of war. The lights are going out because this war is going to get big really fast. The butcher's bill for October will be so great humanity's pockets are to be pulled inside out in search of change to pay it.
You and me along with the whole world await for that shoe to drop in the next few hours in a place mislabelled the "Promised Land." The terror, the hunger, the thirst and the desperation for the 2.2 million people trapped in Gaza anticipating their death from the sky, land or sea is unimaginable.
My father as a young man was like millions of others a participant in as just a war as you can get for our age. World War Two at least in the European theatre was about a battle between light and darkness. Since then, no war fought between nations has had that moral clarity.
In the attached audio you can hear my father talk about what it felt like to have endured the Second World War and been alive to witness the return of spring in 1945. He sounds sad because he was- even just wars have a great deal of pointless death to them.
Our longing in October for spring to return in 2024 is immense because our winter to come will be harsh, austere and mournful.
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