The first shots were fired in 1948 when Israel was created and the Arabs took up arms. They lost but refused to recognise the existence of Israel. Many subsequent wars have been fought but the result has each time been a stronger Israel. But the Arabs refuse to get the best deal they can and get on with their lives. Unfortunately there are refuges with hatred in their hearts.
To add to that on-going confusion there followed Afghanistan. The Russians were sucked in there in 1979 to save communism but were disgraced out ten years later. Obviously they did much damage to the natives and more hatred of foreigners was the result. The Taliban took over most of the country and Al Qaeda and bin Laden resulted. Bin Laden waged his own terrorism against the Americans including bombing their embassies in East Africa. But his most notorious achievement was the twin tower bombings in 2001 with the loss of about three thousand American lives. That escalated terrorism into the Third World War now engulfing all of us.
The Americans went into Afghanistan in search of Al Qaeda and to defeat the Taliban. They have now killed Bin Laden but Al Qaeda and other terrorist off-shoots are still around causing havoc. Then there was the invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein. More enemies were created, more hatred, more terrorists, especially with American drone strikes killing terrorists in the Middle East but obviously killing some innocents. But the mother of terrorism and escalation of the world war was the birth of ISIS in Iraq by disenchanted Sunni Islamists. Their hatred seems to be for all humanity. It is either you are Sunni or you convert or die! Unfortunately they are worse than vandals, hating everything modern including western education. In fact I do not believe they are true adherents of Islam. Their doctrine is that the heads of unbelievers should be cut off! And they are doing just that!
So here we are – in the middle of a war in which there are no defined rules of engagement. Everybody is an enemy. In Igbo land we have a saying that you do not throw stones into a market because you may hit your own mother! But these savages are not throwing stones. They are throwing grenades and bombs and using rapid-fire weapons and killing their own mothers and brothers. Indeed they are using any weapons including driving a lorry into a beach full of revellers in Nice. When and where will it end?
If anybody is thinking there will be a Third World War fought with nuclear weapons he is deceiving himself. Those who have those weapons are not fools. They will not use it because they will die the same time as their opponents. These weapons are just deterrents and waste of valuable tax payer’s money! North Korea might be tempted but the Americans will simply level their country. But they are desperate.
In Nigeria our own war dates back to the nineteen-fifties when Moslems in the north would descend on harmless Igbos even in churches and kill them. Then the Boko Haram came, began by killing policemen, then Igbos, and thereafter anybody. The whole north-east is a disaster zone. Now they are even masquerading as herdsmen and have penetrated the south. And there is hunger in the land. There are kidnappers, robbers, secret cults and all sorts of bad people. As I said in my earlier blog post, Religion – The Opium Of The Masses – this is a war in which nobody can feel safe. Anybody can go mental and claim to be radicalised by ISIS and kill. There are all sorts of disgruntled, demented elements all over the world and anybody with knowledge of the internet can be taught how to kill fellow human beings. ISIS is seeing to that. It is a time when you pass somebody on the street and you wonder whether he is one of them! God help all of us!