Peace Good. War Bad.

In case you haven't heard, there's another war in the Middle East. Israel has invaded Gaza. Sigh. So sad and depressing for everyone involved. Anyway, Glenn Greenwald made some very good comments in an interview with Hugh Hewitt at Townhall.com.

Now, Mr. Hewitt is a socially conservative evangelical Christian radio talk show host, and Mr Greenwald is a lefty gay lawyer (from New York, natch) who blogs for Salon.com. Yeah, you get the idea: not natural allies these two. And they don't agree here either. Nevertheless, they manage to have a nice civil discussion about the proper way to combat terrorism.

Mr Greenwald is a bit of a loon sometimes, but I agree with much of what he says in the interview, which basically boils down to this: if you kill somebody's son or cousin or father, they will hate you and chances are good they will retaliate. Very clearly this is in no way justification; it's just the way of the world.

I'm not enmeshed enough in this particular conflict at this particular point in time to render a specific opinion, but the following resonates with me: Hamas doesn't want peace (they want Israel to be destroyed) so they bomb Israel. Israel wants peace, so they bomb Gaza. Israel is not acting in their own long term interests.

I encourage you to read the transcript.

Peace Good. War Bad.