Wars are easy to start and very hard to stop, and always come with disastrous unintended consequences.
I woke up this morning thinking about Gaza and Lebanon and Tehran, and the folly, stupidity and brutality of war. My son is visiting for a few days and my family is under one roof. The refrigerator is full of food — milk, eggs, cheese, bread — water runs from the tap and the toilet takes our waste away, we can wash and bathe; the electricity is always on. If necessary, we have access to medical care. We have our laptops and streaming services, soccer matches to watch, and as I lay in my comfortable bed it feels unreal because I know we have everything the people of Gaza, Lebanon, and Tehran don’t have. It feels unreal because it’s only a matter of luck, a blind roll of the dice that we’re here, not there.
People in Gaza are living in tents or bombed out buildings with raw sewage running in the dirt. Most of the clinics, hospitals and schools have been destroyed. Food, potable water and cooking oil are scarce. Many people have been displaced a dozen times in the past two years, forced to grab what they can carry — what hasn’t been destroyed or buried in rubble — and move on in search of illusive safety, but the reality is that no spot in the narrow enclave is truly safe or free of death. I wonder what I would do to keep my family safe; I wonder if I could manage it under the worst conditions imaginable, and I’m not sure because I’ve never been tested in that way. The fires and floods I’ve experienced have been at distance, safe remove; the Covid pandemic was frightening, particularly in the early days, but with the exception of being inconvenienced, we hardly suffered. The Big Earthquake hasn’t happened yet.
I’ve never lived under bombardment. How many times has the population of Beirut been bombed? I try to imagine the terror, the sound of screaming jet planes, and the concussion when missiles land. Fires and dust and choking smoke, the shrill wail of fire engines and ambulances, the terror of mothers and fathers who cannot keep their children safe, protect their aging parents and relatives. No electricity, gas, or water. Blackout. Cries of the injured. Death. Mourning. Every comforting routine gone.
I wonder what remains to bomb in Gaza. I wonder if Israel will ever run out of ammunition and missiles, and I wonder if bloodlust can ever be satisfied.
I don’t want to think about Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, Lindsey Graham or Bibi Netanyahu, but it’s impossible not to think of these men who speak so cavalierly about war and death, who speak with certainty about enemies, targets, and “lethality.” Very few human beings can be trusted with power over others. I remember something Daniel Ellsberg wrote in one of his notebooks:
“Those who lie a democratic country into war deserve the worst contempt, reproach, condemnation, and punishment that society offers. They have done what our democratic system was intended to prevent.”
I agree with Ellsberg, and yet the men who unleash war too often face no penalty. Dubya Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld. Vladimir Putin is a vile autocrat with the blood of millions on his hands and he lives in comfort, with people to satisfy his desires. Men who make war. The great human pastime. They refuse to understand that wars are easy to start and very hard to stop, and always come with disastrous unintended consequences.
After using the bathroom, brushing my teeth, washing, I make coffee. It’s so easy, so routine, so normal, yet this morning I don’t take it for granted, I smell the grounds, watch the brown liquid fall into the pot. Through the door to her room I hear my daughter’s snores. She’s safe, unharmed, all her limbs intact; her mind isn’t traumatized from terror and death. My wife and son are asleep, safe. This morning it feels like a miracle.
