Oh, we all thought it would look like this.






Oh, if only it was that easy.

World War III has always been played out in a Cold-War world. The United States, inventor of the atomic bomb, once possesed the sole capability of destroying the entire planet. That changed on August 29, 1949 when our ideological rival detonated their own nuclear weapon.

There were uneasy steps and developments, which culminated in the near-destruction of everything on October 22, 1962. Fortunately for us all, calmer heads prevailed, and for the remainder of the Cold War, we maintained an uneasy peace with our Soviet adversaries under the madness known as "Mutually Assured Destruction". Neither side was willing to use theirs, knowing the other side would retaliate in-kind, and nobody could ever win.

But our current war is quite a different thing. We don't need to re-hash what we all lived through, but I will note for the record that this October 7 will mark 18 years since we invaded Afghanistan in the wake of those terrorist attacks perpetrated by Saudi Arabians.

It's been a never-ending battle for nearly two decades. One can shrug and state "We are at war with Eastasia; we have ALWAYS been at war with Eastasia." It's strange to think; look at the Orwellian map of 1984. Somehow it seems neatly arranged to reflect our modern world.

But is it a World War? The term itself is somewhat nebulous. There are many historians that make a compelling case that the War of 1812 was actually World War One. Many other conflicts, some larger than others, have a strong historical case to be called a "World War".

The current conflict is no less ideologically based than the significant wars in our past. What does make this one different is the inclusion of religion. Read this passage, then tell me what religious text it might be from:



Pretty obvious, right? How about this one?



Well, what if I told you I exchanged "Allah" and "the LORD your God" in these passages?

You see the problem here, right?

We are in the midst of a titanic struggle. While it isn't over political ideology, this is no less "US" vs. "THEM" in every sense of the word. I count myself among the few that I know that have actually read both the Bible and the Koran cover-to-cover. It's been said by many religious scholars of all stripes that two things remain true about both texts.

It's possible to find justification both for and against nearly every position within the pages of these texts. It's also possible to read both texts with hate and evil in your heart and find what you are looking for as easily as it is to read with mercy and love and find the exact opposite.

It is a World War, to my way of thinking, because we are being led by demagogues on both sides of that equation. The atmosphere has become so polluted by propaganda that this day and age is the living embodiment of Kipling's phrase, "Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet."

Our God (which is the same as their God, lest we forget), will always back us up and justify our wars because we want him to, and can find that justification in our primary religious text. So can their God, because they read it through the same poisoned lens.

Our allies and enemies around the world won't even deign to approach a bargaining table, because our own position is so weak, and so polluted by our internal strife that what was once a moderating, neutral nation must now take opposing positions to nearly everyone on everything.

What passes for diplomacy today is a psychopath, surrounded by sycophants, walking across a demarcation line to embrace a fellow demagogue.

This is no way to run a country - or indeed the world.