Brendan Loy Has A Finger on the Pulse

My vague sense of unease and impending doom about this Mideast thing won't abate. I'm stewing in my juices trying to frame the situation in a potentially positive way and coming up wanting. It ain't working, no matter how hard I try to fix it.

As any man will tell you, even transient bouts of impotence cause distrurbing amounts of anxiety. Watching Israel and Lebanon and Syria and Iran .... me innards tremble. Impotent. The last time I felt this way--panged and helpless and fearful of the implications was 9/11/2001. Perhaps the reason I feel this way is the Nameless War, that to some is not war, just opened another theater. And I guess, too, that's another part of it: some don't see what I see: War. And I wonder. How can they not see it?

Brendan Loy perfectly encapsulates my disquiet. He says:

And if things continue to escalate, it could get really bad: we all know Syria is deeply involved with Hezbollah and Lebanon, and now Iran is threatening that if Israel attacks Syria, Iran will attack Israel. And heaven knows America will defend Israel if that happens. Plus, this all has massive implications for Iraq. And who knows what implications a wider regional war would have for Afghanistan… and its ever-fragile neightbor, Pakistan… and recently-attacked India… etc. etc. And if America gets sufficiently distracted, Kim Jong Il might throw another temper tantrum, which opens up the possibility of whole ‘nother domino effect (South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan…). All that’s missing from this volatile mix is an archduke named Ferdinand!

He says that maybe he's getting carried away. I'm not so sure he's exagerating. And that's why I'm afraid.