Not that my friend was clear-headed about the conflict - he was anything but. What mattered was the wave of alienation that hit me: the sudden, disorienting sense of having no idea what the hell I was talking about, sitting here, safe, in this Brooklyn brownstone. What he said isn’t so important - he was predictably pro-Israel and anti-terrorist, and deeply invested in the blood that had been spilled and who had “started” it all. I don’t know what I said - some mitigating and semi-informed comment about how both sides had been locked in this struggle for so long that they couldn’t see anything clearly anymore, and that enough was enough, I think.
Dan carlin blueprint for armageddon series#
The topic turned to the first intifada - a series of Palestinian terrorist attacks (or acts of resistance, depending on whom you talked to) in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, still ongoing at the time. no reminders necessary) a dinner party I once attended at the home of an Israeli friend, a guy maybe 10 years older than me who had lived most of his life in Jerusalem. Our ignorance of the reality of war affects our policy decisions abroad and the way we talk about things like terrorism. If you have to say “never forget,” you’ve probably already forgotten. Even 9/11 quickly de-rezzed into clichés. Worse, war is still with us - in Africa, in the Middle East - but until it comes and visits your house, it’s tough to really hold it fixed in your mind’s eye, an ever-present reality. Staring all that in the face, as much as is possible with the help of Dan Carlin’s “Hardcore History” podcast, a biography of Winston Churchill, and PJ Harvey’s song “All and Everyone,” it’s hard not to think of us as a generation of children, prancing around and fussing now and then whenever our toys get broken.
Dan carlin blueprint for armageddon full#
Years spent living in trenches full of shit, piss, and dead bodies. Millions dead and maimed on the Western front. But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about World War I - about that generation that found itself suddenly thrust into the worst horror humanity had ever managed to contrive. War is terrible and to be avoided at any cost.
Slow, steady shaking of the head from side to side. The way we talk about war on Facebook and elsewhere is a bit like the way white people in the suburbs talk about gang violence in the inner cities. But most of us have no idea what war really is.
Everybody in my country in my generation knows that war is tragic and wrong.
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