Can Extreme Enemies Become Friends?


Dear Reader,

We hear how ISIS/Daesh "must be destroyed". But if we were to think back to 2003 wasn't the organisation to be destroyed called al-Qayida? And they still exist. Furthermore, ISIS/Daesh have since appeared and are even a worse foe.

Therefore, isn't it logical that if we keep bombing it will only create further groups that want to throw their spite at the West, as they have appeared in Libya and other places?

Just what is the alternative?

In my view it's to turn the whole thing on its head and do something that stands a chance of removing these hate groups. Something peaceful!

Abraham Lincoln is reported as saying: "Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends? " Well, it must be said that he didn't totally succeed as someone shot him; but that's another story for analysis at some other time. Just now, I'd rather look into the crux of this quotation of his.


In fact, Lincoln can be quoted many times in how he built bridges with supposed enemies. He summed up his attitude to people when he said: "I want it said of me by those who know me best to say that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.” 

Well, Abraham Lincoln operated purely in a domestic scenario and was not faced with the sort of extreme cultural group that we face today, but if we were to look at scripture - Christian, Hindu or Buddhist, and even Muslim - we would find that peace is or should be the ultimate aim for us all. And you certainly do not find peace by literally blowing up your opponent to prove a point.

Over nearly the last 100 years in particular the West has been making trouble for itself in the Middle East, and now we are reaping the anger that meddling has generated. We managed to give Palestinian lands to the Jews (which they have greatly extended on the pretext of creating defence for themselves); we put in puppet heads of government in Iran and Iraq. And America backed al-Qayida against Russia in the 1980s. 

What trouble we started ... and since then (the last 25 years) we've been bombing our way out of it and are still bombing, with no visible sign of success and only further destruction and death of innocents as the observable outcome. All while we leave Israel to perform its own destructive policies.

To me the United Nations (UN) is the significant entity in the current situation and the avenue that must be used to channel some progressive policy. Particularly now that Russia is involved and is working on the side of the Western bloc.

If the UN is not used then I would question why not. Surely the UN should be the entity that can be used to find a way to strangle the supply of financial and logistic support for ISIS/Daesh. From where do they get their support? Doesn't the UN know?

All this to be aided by prayers for peace.

What we don't want is an escalation of war and terrorism. Let us at least find a different approach - whatever that may be!

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