LOW-LEVEL WARS

The Libyan episode (or, rather, act 1 of it) appears to be coming to a conclusion. But there are still a lot of other wars going on in the world. Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, to name but three; plus violence in Somalia, South Sudan and Zimbabwe that's not big enough to be considered a real war.

The common thread of all these conflicts is that they no longer make headline news, but are kicked off the top spot by a madman in Norway, riots in the U.K., debt negotiations in the U.S. and even rainstorms in Belgium. Yet the slow drip drip of casualties in these places eventually adds up to a lot of death and destruction; at least a couple of thousand in Syria, for instance.

We are becoming inured to war. And that is not a good thing. 

Walter Blotscher