It's looking like World War IIICan the rapture be far behind?

With Israel's bombing of the Beirut Airport, your blogstress thinks it's safe to say that there's a war going on in the Middle East. Duh, you say? Well, mes amis, the experts will tell you that what's going on between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and the Israelis and the Lebanese does not constitute a war, but rather represents two high-intensity conflicts, or some other sort of euphemism. For example, the following, from today's comprehensive report by Anthony Shadid, Scott Wilson and Debbi Wilgoren of the Washington Post Foreign Service :

"We are not at war, but we are in a very high-volume crisis, and we have an intention to put an end to the situation here along the northern border," said Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, according to the wire service reports.

For its part, the Bush administration, which has set the standard for military responses to terrorist attacks, appears to be trying to make a distinction between terrorism and war with regard to Hezbollah's abduction of Israeli soldiers -- the event that set off the current round of Israeli attacks on civilian centers. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared the Hezbollah attack to be "an act of war," which speaks to the Bush administration's War on Terror rhetoric. Talk about reaping what one sows.

It's difficult for your cybertrix not to feel for the people of Lebanon as well as the people of Israel. It seems to your Webwench that the Lebanese are taking heat that rightfully belongs to the Iranians and the Syrians. And just as Lebanon was looking like an actual liberal democracy.

Add to this mess the carnage elsewhere in the non-Christian world -- the sectarian killings in Iraq, the bombings of the Mumbai trains, the killing of Chenyan terrorist Shamil Basayev, the apparent proxy war fomented by Khartoum arising in Darfur and the escalation of Taliban attacks, and you'll find an arc of fire cutting a swath through Asia -- from Asia Minor to South and Central Asia -- adorned by smouldering coals at either end, in North Africa at one, and southeastern Europe at the other.