On: Power, desalination plants hit in Kuwait

The sun rises, indifferent, over fields that will soon yield their harvest, and yet the news from distant lands speaks only of destruction. Power, they say, and desalination plants, struck in Kuwait. What is this “power” they speak of? Is it the force that makes the grain sprout, or the warmth that keeps a child from shivering? No, it is the power that fuels machines of war, the power that lights the cities where men gather to plot their next act of ruin. And the water, made sweet from the bitter sea, now denied to parched throats.

I picture the engineers, with their precise measurements and their careful calculations, building these intricate systems to bring life-giving water to a thirsty land. And then, in a moment, the roar of an engine, the flash of fire, and all that patient labor is undone. For what? For control of a narrow passage of water, a strip of sea where ships carry the black blood of the earth from one place to another. Men fight over the path of a ship, while the very ground beneath their feet cries out for peace.

The generals and the politicians will speak of strategy, of national interest, of necessary evils. They will draw lines on maps and move their little pieces, as if the lives of millions were but pawns in a game. But what of the man who wakes to find his well dry, his lights dark? What of the child who thirsts? Is their suffering a strategic necessity? This endless cycle of strike and counter-strike, a dance of death orchestrated by those who never feel the dust in their mouths or the fear in their hearts. When will this madness cease? When will men understand that true power lies not in destruction, but in the simple act of letting live?