Israel

It's all escalating, and, despite the genuine justifications for retaliating for incursions on the Gaza and Lebanese borders and the attacks on Haifa, Tiberias, and Safed, the destruction in Beirut and of major infrastructure throughout Lebanon, with the attendant loss of civilian lives, overrides those justifications.

The photographs of mutilated infants are going to be reproduced on web pages for years to come, and the caption will always make it clear that 'the Jews did this'.

The roots of injustice go deep and memories are long. The danger with today's situation is the wild cards of two major nuts in charge of Iran and the US, and the post-World-War-II nuclear arsenal, so lovingly (and profitably) built up over all these years, is just sitting around taking up space.

Imagined conversation from the Halliburton boardroom: if Tel Aviv is too radioactive for our guys, we'll just subcontract everything out to someone dumb, for the first 20 years. Either way, we win.