There is a desert wind blowing. The sands of time have created such a dust storm that the world is increasingly blinded by the sand.

Like many, many times before civilians are the victims of the wars that have engulfed the Middle East. People who are part of minority ethnic groups are especially hard hit in the recent barbaric actions that are taking place in Iraq and Syria. Christians, Yazidis, Kurds, Shia, including Shabak and Turkman and Alawites are victims of this human tragedy that is unfolding. Death, hunger and disease are the human wreckage left by war. Human trafficking and forced marriages, beheadings, and other means of terror are used to force upon the people of the region the will of the current religious tyrants in chief the group called ISIL. War is nothing but a human tragedy. Refugee camps fill Jordan. The United States mounted a humanitarian effort to save people in desperate straits on Mount Sinjar. Sunnis are a minority in some countries. The Minority rights of those who differ in their ethnicity and religion need to be protected from human atrocities and discrimination.

Meanwhile many of the people are divided on how to deal with the human misery that is occurring today and will occur tomorrow. Allegedly 60 countries have banded together in a common effort to make the members of ISIL accountable for their actions.

It is truly amazing and quite disappointing that we find what is going on in the 21st Century. Has the world learned much in the intervening years since World War II, or have we forgotten the lessons of two world wars? The killing fields of Cambodia occurred while the world stood by and did nothing. Ethnic cleansing happened for a long time in the former country of Yugoslavia with the world community of nations wringing their hands in criticism but doing little until too many had died. Genocide is a common occurrence in Africa.

When will we ever learn? Is it part of human nature to be inhumane to our fellow human beings if they are viewed as somehow being different?

I was sitting in a local Starbucks coffee-house enjoying a cold iced coffee observing those who came in to enjoy the moment. I sat in wonder as people of all shapes, sizes and colors came in. The children were especially intriguing to observe as they were so friendly to each other, no matter what color or religion their fellow students were. They were beautiful to watch. We can learn a lot from how our own children treat each other. The United States is blessed to have such diversity. I am sure that there are other coffee houses in other countries where people drop in to enjoy a moment or two and share in their humanity. There are probably one heck of a lot of Muslims who find ISIL to be too radical for modern-day life. We all have more in common than what divides us.

Perhaps someday the United Nations will listen to the people at Starbucks and fulfill their original objectives. We need to find a way to eliminate war and genocide.

Maybe someday the people in power who have never been to war will stop sending the young off to war. Maybe they will realize that if children of different backgrounds and colors can get along and love one another, they should find a way to get along.

Maybe someday people who claim to be religious will realize that we are all God’s children and stop causing wars based up religious differences.

What is especially disturbing in my country, the United States, is the tendency to have two schools of thought when it comes to the Middle East. On the left many have basically concluded that our involvement will make matters worse and that we should basically do nothing and stand by and let the killing go on. Some blame the United States for ISIL and refuse to acknowledge as a result of our responsibility for breaking the pottery any duty to stop the carnage. I hear how it is not our fight, that there is nothing the United States should do or can do to make a difference. If the world is willing to do something, maybe, only maybe will the left be willing to do anything. Where is the moral outrage for the human tragedy that we see all of the time? Do we have to wait for some other country to lead the effort to stop the killing? If that is the case, dream on, that is not going to happen. Meanwhile if we do nothing , death and more killing will go on. Is the left willing to accept death as an inevitable consequence? How many concentrations camps and killing fields need to occur before the left wing realizes that inaction encourages bullies and tyrants? If dictators have no fear of any consequences for their actions, wars will go on without end.

The neo-cons, have their own agenda. The right wing looks to use the military at any opportunity, and seeks either oil or power in the misguided ideology of how it is necessary to find new enemies to justify the existence and power of the Military-Industrial Complex. Today it is Muslims tomorrow who? Who will our next enemy be?

Then there are the libertarian isolationist who believe that somehow we can isolate ourselves from what is going on in the world and do nothing.

Is doing nothing an alternative when countless thousands are killed, left homeless and are persecuted til death for their different ethnicity and religious beliefs?

Where are the leaders, the wise men of the World War II era who sought to prevent future wars? Where is the middle ground where a plan should exist to treat the causes of the despair, desperation and extremism that we find in the tribal regions of the Middle East. I refuse to believe that war and death is the only choice for that part of the world or for any part of the world in the 21st Century.

There are too many killing fields, too many rows of crosses representing the dead from past wars. There are too many nightmares and too many people lost and without a home to return to due to wars. Where have all of the flowers gone? The young have died too long for nothing. Let us develop a plan, that once ISIL is gone, we can therefore deprive others of a reason for war.