Arab Versus Arab

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NYALA, Sudan, Aug. 28 — Some of the same Arab tribes accused of massacring civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan are now unleashing their considerable firepower against one another in a battle over the spoils of war that is killing hundreds of people and displacing tens of thousands.

... Darfur’s violence has often been characterized as government-backed Arab tribes slaughtering non-Arab tribes, but this new Arab-versus-Arab dimension seems to be a sign of the evolving complexity of the crisis. What started out four years ago in western Sudan as a rebellion and brutal counterinsurgency has cracked wide open into a fluid, chaotic, confusing free-for-all with dozens of armed groups, a spike in banditry and chronic attacks on aid workers.

-- Jeffrey Gettleman for The New York Times

I cannot help but feel that there is a certain poetic justice in this Arab-against-Arab violence. Since they seem to be so given to violence and war to solve their problems, and seeing how the West is morally disinclined to unleash its violent power in full to squelch their violence, our best bet would seem to be their turning on each other. One also sees some potential for this in the Middle East between Sunnis and Shia.

xXx

Arab Versus Arab

♠
NYALA, Sudan, Aug. 28 — Some of the same Arab tribes accused of massacring civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan are now unleashing their considerable firepower against one another in a battle over the spoils of war that is killing hundreds of people and displacing tens of thousands.

... Darfur’s violence has often been characterized as government-backed Arab tribes slaughtering non-Arab tribes, but this new Arab-versus-Arab dimension seems to be a sign of the evolving complexity of the crisis. What started out four years ago in western Sudan as a rebellion and brutal counterinsurgency has cracked wide open into a fluid, chaotic, confusing free-for-all with dozens of armed groups, a spike in banditry and chronic attacks on aid workers.

-- Jeffrey Gettleman for The New York Times

I cannot help but feel that there is a certain poetic justice in this Arab-against-Arab violence. Since they seem to be so given to violence and war to solve their problems, and seeing how the West is morally disinclined to unleash its violent power in full to squelch their violence, our best bet would seem to be their turning on each other. One also sees some potential for this in the Middle East between Sunnis and Shia.

xXx

My Aging Friend

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Bo trembles much like an elderly man, and when I look into his watery eyes, his sweet face in my hands, it feels like he is retreating from me, the life-energy dimming.

___ ___ ___

Watching Bo strain to urinate, looking at the way he stretches his legs and body, staring at the strain in his muscles, I am a little shocked to see how much he appears like a little person, and not some second-class pet, but more like a child, a dying child.

xXx

My Aging Friend

♠
Bo trembles much like an elderly man, and when I look into his watery eyes, his sweet face in my hands, it feels like he is retreating from me, the life-energy dimming.

___ ___ ___

Watching Bo strain to urinate, looking at the way he stretches his legs and body, staring at the strain in his muscles, I am a little shocked to see how much he appears like a little person, and not some second-class pet, but more like a child, a dying child.

xXx