As I contemplate the rockets and bombs raining down on people in Israel and Lebanon, it occurs to me that I experience modern technology in a very different way than do the people in those regions. Here, deep inside the most heavily militarized nation-state on the planet, the mighty fortress of the United States, it’s highly unlikely a rocket will rain down on my family and my house. Instead, I experience modern technology mainly as a benefit, as a sharp-edged knife that is in my own hands. For example, planes ferry us around for business and pleasure; they don’t direct bombs at my neighborhood. The one exception to that is September 11, when planes were directed as deadly missiles. Thus our obsessive focus on that dark day.

The vicious, serrated edge of modern techonology, the one used in warfare, will strike this nation again one day. But for now, it is mainly directed at others far away, including Lebanon, and to a lesser degree at Israel.

Since Israel’s military capacity is so much greater than its immediate neighbors, that country is also causing the most destruction in the current conflict. Israel, look at the blade in your own hand. Look where you are directing it, whose throats you are cutting.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 24th, 2006 at 11:18 am and is filed under Other Places, Politics.