My heart breaks at the loss of life in the Middle East, and particularly at the way in which the lives of children in the region are (apparently) considered of no value by all sides. Today I read of yet another careless slaughter of children--the same one that is making headlines today around the world--and what dismays me most is not the fact that even more of the people that God's angels (according to Jesus) constantly intercede for in Heaven are now part of the growing list of the dead . . . but that my government, and particularly the President of the United States, is either too incompetent or too uncompassionate (or both) to lift a finger to stop this madness.

Perhaps my saying this opens me to the label of "un-American" or "unpatriotic" or "anti-Israel" . . . but at this point, I don't give a damn. I have sat by and watched while a war potentially volatile enough to involve Syria and Iran (and--if it does--an exchange of weapons of mass destruction) and another war in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority--both of which have seen the callous (yes, callous) slaughter of unarmed civilians, many of them women and children, has filled my heart with mourning for the innocent dead for 19 days, and I have had it.

As an American citizen, I call upon anyone reading this blog (and I mean you, fellow bloggers) to begin to call our government to account for its outrageous and inexcusable hesitation to call for an immediate cease fire between Israel and its opponents.

I am sick of the President's (and the State Department's) excuses, and I am sick of the Congress competing for who has the most bragging rights for supporting Israel while a war of (to me) dubious merit, unwarranted (and unrighteous) devastation, and utter disregard for the sanctity of human families (and particularly children) perpetuates itself, and threatens to spill over into other countries and other regions of the Middle East.

If Bush calls himself a Christian, then for the life of me, I would like for him to explain why he apparently shows absolutely no concern for those whose angels, as Jesus said, have constant access to the ear of God. Furthermore, I would like to know why the systematic destruction of an entire country--which just recently came out of a civil war and was rebuilding itself--have not apparently reached the ears of either the President, the Vice President, or of the House and the Senate (and by the House and Senate, I mean both the Republican and Democratic parties, which are equally guilty of enabling this damnable debauchery of annihilation, blood, and mayhem to go on unremarked through their enthusiastic support of one of its chiefest culprits).

I call upon anyone in our government to listen to this plea, and I call upon any blogger who stumbles upon this blog and this little blog entry to do something, to spread the word, to raise a nationwide call to our government and our leaders to

STOP

THE

VIOLENCE!!!

Thank you.