some questions

This article about the riots in France begs some questions. When do riots become an insurgency? When does an insurgency become civil war? What is happening on this planet of ours? What are God's children up to?

I'm sure the police and government officials in France would say that the "unrest" is a long long long way from any of those things. And I hope and pray they are right and they are able to address the issues at play and help facilitate a settling down of the situation.

They do seem to be at least acknowledging the poverty, discrimination and feeling of abandonment that seem to be the underlying causes of the violence. But considering that the violence is being caused by French-born descendants of Muslim Africans and Arabs, one has to wonder when the powers that be look around and think … is something else going on here?

I remember reading somewhere that in Bosnia, there was never a day when the war started. A killing here. A bombing here. One day everyone looked around and they were in the throws of a civil war. Last time I remembered this it was in the context of Iraq, where we seem to have almost certainly sparked a civil war that will rage for decades to come.

Cheerful post, eh? That's what I get for reading the Washington Post at lunch.

Pray for peace.