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Everyone knows that as the situation around us changes we
need to react and that involves applying a sense of judgement based on our
assessment of the current situation taking into consideration trends and
experience.
Those that do this well stand out as leaders.
When terrorists turned passenger jets into missiles in order
to destroy the New York twin Trade Towers they achieved much more than they
even dreamed about. Not even the engineers that designed these sky scrapers
even considered such a purpose for a passenger jet. It took an evil mind to
devise such a thing and therefore to most of us it was simply inconceivable.
Many buildings world wide have crashed to the ground because
the eventuality of earthquakes at the time of their building seemed like a
remote possibility. No one would construct a building today, anywhere in the
world, without due consideration to this possibility. But this awareness is
hind sight developed through painful experiences and changing environmental
circumstances.
Hind sight is wonderful. We look back and often cannot
understand why something was not obvious. But the simple fact is that we most
often have to experience things directly before we start to appreciate how to
plan into our thinking and behavior a proactive stance and thus preempt
undesirable and anticipated possibilities.
But even then, life can be very complicated and busy and we
are inevitably forced into compromises of time, attention, and effort with
regard to just about everything. If an automobile was designed with regard to
absolutely every possibility that presented itself as a safety issue then no
one, not even Bill Gates, could afford to purchase it. In all things we appear
to make compromises based on our assessment of the reality and how probable or
improbable things appear to be. For example, automobiles are not designed to
withstand a pounding from a meteor even if it is the size of a pebble. The
eventuality of a meteorite shower is quite small but it is a possibility. If it
suddenly starts to happen then the world would be ill equipped to deal with it.
Houses and cars would be damaged and possibly put afire. Large buildings,
forests, animals, people, airplanes, boats, you name it, would all be damaged
or ruined. It would be a devastating situation with fuel depots blowing up,
airplanes crashing, cars driving off the roads and so on.
So why don't we prepare for this eventuality? If this
eventuality can be so devastating why don't we just figure on it happening
along with a million other obscure possibilities? Because in our assessment we
determine that the probability is small of such meteor showers. But if all of a
sudden the situation changed and such a probability became high we would not
even know that until we experienced the new situation. And in the light of such
great devastation and based on hind sight there would be all kinds of people
speaking about what we should have done to avoid the problem that crept up upon
us all and forgetting how difficult it is to manage our decisions, planning,
and behavior without hind sight.
Of course there are always those devious sorts that try to
realize a gain out of someone else's problem. It is more than obvious, for
example, that certain individuals are trying to embarrass the Bush
administration for having done a good job in a very difficult situation. He
just looks to good as a leader. They want to take him down but they have to do
so in a way that does not give away their agenda. These kind of people are easy
to understand and very predictable in their devious behavior. Mr. Bush appears
to be a true leader and an outstanding citizen. He rose to the challenge and
through his leadership America stood tall - very tall. We would do well to
check out the humanitarian motivations of those that appear to be making some
gain by creating a negative public reaction against leaders that have served
them all so very well, before taking what these critical hypocrites say too
seriously. They are only after the position of the one they would discredit.
Where was their voice of wisdom and great understanding prior to that terrible
event of sky scrapers falling into dust and debris.
Mr. Bush, President Bush, did well as a leader when
terrorism launched itself on America. No President, no one in congress, no
engineers or architects, nurses or plumbers, poor or rich, and even those that
dare to criticize him, even dreamed of such a situation. Even the most
brilliant of all - according to the Democrats - the highly moral Mr. Clinton
did not even dream that such a situation would be experienced in American life.
Jimmy Carter did not see it coming. No Democrats saw it coming. No Republicans
saw it coming. Even those that prepared the investigative reports did not dream
of the actual form that this terrorism would take. The Clinton administration
was experiencing terrorism and it's growth. Where were these critics when all
this terrorism was going on under the Clinton Administration? Why did they not
have a crystal ball into which they could gaze and figure out in advance the
evil that was growing upon them and upon us all? Because they are as "stupid"
as the rest of us.
There is also a similar situation with Israel, Palestine,
and the so called human rights groups. Israel's leadership is attempting to
apply whatever wisdom it can come up with in order to deal with hatred and
terrorism as it has developed around them. There is a clear parallel between
Israel facing terrorism and the USA facing terrorism. If the USA can go and
destroy terrorism then any nation should be able to do this. Terrorism must be
destroyed. It is not an answer. It is not an alternative. It is pure hate. It
is clear by listening to some of these human rights workers that they are
prejudicial in their work and have lost objectivity and have no idea of the
leadership nightmare that the leaders of Israel have to face with respect to
this terrorism. Nor do they seem to care. These leaders are attempting to make
decisions and plans to deal with situations of terror and they are bound to
overlook some things and make mistakes. We are human. Humans make mistakes. To
expect more is not realistic. The thing is, do we learn from our mistakes?
We should all stop, take a breath, and ask ourselves what we
would do in similar situations if we did not know the outcome and problems that
developed. That is precisely the issue. Mostly through experience from which
comes hind sight do we develop appropriate wisdom to deal with unanticipated
problems. This is true even in the field of engineering. Very true! Ask those
engineers that worked on space craft, rockets, airplanes, and even cars and
tires. From such has come the notion of "Murphy's Law", if it can go wrong it
will. But even knowing this, our intellect and experience is never up to the
chore of accurately determining the trade off between probable and improbable.
Inevitably experience from which comes hind sight will teach us. But by then we
have paid a price.
To paraphrase Jesus: "he that is without fault may cast the
first stone". What we should be looking for from any failure is a way towards
success. Remember the old adage: "Those that live in glass houses should not
throw stones". We are in this world to help each other, to learn with each
other, to build a world of peace. But there are among us many who would
practice gain at our expense and who present themselves as one thing while
being something all together different. Again Jesus warned us of wolves in
sheeps clothing. What is important is not our perfection or imperfection, our
successes and failures, but that we learn and grow and demonstrate an attitude
in all we do of love and caring.
Agreements and resolutions affecting Israel and the Palestinians.
Click here for the previous editorial
Map of modern Israel
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