A thinking man...

One of my writer friends of long standing, who is also a Professor, considers the Iraqi insurgents and emails questions that deserve some consideration:

Is it utterly incomprehensible that the enemy here wants western influence out of their space, that they want to eliminate western occupation of their lands, that they do not want western power to dictate how they handle their natural resource, that they want their belief systems and values for themselves?

Is it utterly incomprehensible that the enemy doesn't give a crap about our freedoms, that they don't give a crap about whether western women dress or don't dress because they care only about the women in their world, that they don't care about western television because they block it anyway, that they believe they have a right to control their own world on their terms?

Creative people consider possibilities.

Intelligent people search for possibilities to consider.

Creative people value possibilities.

Intelligent people don't do the same thing(s) over and over and expect different results.

Creative people know that the reason something doesn't work is because it isn't the right thing or it hasn't been used properly.

There really are some possibilities here. Continuing to do the same thing(s) and expecting different results is a classic indicator of either dirt stupid or mental ill-health. What if the people they define as invaders, occupiers, and infidels stopped trying to remake the people into a different image, after the people have a lifestyle they have lived for six to ten times longer than the invaders, occupiers, and infidels have existed?

What if those they define as occupiers, infidels, invaders stopped pussyfooting around and just bombed the crap out of every elementary school in the whole of the Middle East, at the same moment on the same day, killing every kid destined to grow up hating the invaders, infidels, and occupiers, so there will be no more haters to grow up? Kill 'em all and let their god sort them out.

What if we read some history and decided that while history, itself, does not repeat itself, history's patterns do, and this is a pattern repeated over and over for 2000 years?

What if people looked at all this as a problem to solve rather than a test of testosterone level?

What if people looked at this thing as something modern, different, unlike conflicts with which we have been accustomed over the last 13,000 years?

Creative people think about possibilities. The others die or end up in cages. That is what the last 13,000 years have shown us.

Ask the chimps about it. Their DNA is within 2.5% of ours, but they're still sucking termites off sticks because that's their best possibility. What's ours?
Leif
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