Me?

Using the model of Nation As Family, and extending it for int'l relations to Nations As Family Members, an immediate cease-fire is obviously necessary. Some conservative arguments are partly appealing, but violence is not ok. Not warfare-style violence, ok?, not when when there are children present.* And in warfare-style violence, there are always children present.

If negotiations are not working it is only because we are not negotiating appropriately . That is the only possible reason. I can no more explain exactly what the national leaders should do or say than I can speak for any set of Battlin' Dicks and ImPOSSible Janes when I am not in conversation with them.

I believe that, in conversation, I can paint a prettier picture to yearn for than we have now. Let's say, oh, I don't know, pointing to a direction away from the cartridge and Arash rocket, and towards the goddamn table. Breathe. The only legitimate violence is police-style violence. Breathe. And that's no peach, either, for a nation or a family member. (And there is always a nation, or a family member, or a child, present for it, too.)

Most importantly, appropriately, I point away from the cross and the crescent, but still directly onto knees.

The family on knees together breathes together.

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* From today's NYTimes:

"At least 56 people were killed, most of them children, The Associated Press reported.

"Rescue workers and neighbors worked frantically Sunday morning to find survivors among the wreckage of a house, where two large extended families were hiding in a garage. Six small children, their mouths open and full of dirt, were brought out and laid on stretchers.

"'I felt as if I was turning around, and the earth was going up, and I was going into the earth,'" said [...] a father of five who was thrown into a doorway and managed to escape. All five of his children, including a 2-year-old child, were killed. His wife, sister and aunt were also killed.

"Neighbors said they ran to the house after the first strike, around 1 a.m., and that they heard screams and tried to reach people trapped inside, but the strikes persisted and they could not reach them. Rescue workers pulled bodies of 22 people out of the rubble Sunday morning, but neighbors said more bodies were inside."


UPDATE: This account is in great dispute. The death toll has been revised down, by about half, I think. There's the whole Green Helmet Guy thing. Doesn't change my mind on the matter. Like the other side doesn't have a much greater propaganda machine. The media critique, if valid, is, uh, valid.