Who are we to tell them what to do?

Dear Editor:
I read a letter to the editor – and the editor’s response – in the recent edition of The Shoreline.
I know of this author from over 10 years ago because of his association with a former professor of mine who also publicly shares opinions about the Middle East, albeit more subdued.
My Grade 9 history book spoke of the concept of “Balkanization.” That is where powerful, often imperial in structure, states meddle in the affairs of smaller states to play out their rival agendas.
The first time this practice led to the first world war. Now Balkanizing Asia Minor speaks of a third world war. Seriously!
How can the Imperialists in NATO, the west, and other superpower aristocratic governments try to save the historical Palestine region and its inhabitants from themselves based on their own ethics and morals?
Good luck. This is the region where a vast array of ethnic peoples established religions and morals for almost half the world. Anthropologically did we all not “…come out of Africa …’ across the Sinai so to speak.
How hypocritical – as the three of us write – to ignore how we, in the West, manage to slaughter each other on a grand scale on a regular basis, our morals and religions notwithstanding. Trench warfare in Eastern Europe. A 20-year failed war in a landlocked region (Afghanistan) with a miniscule ancient culture yet known as the “graveyard of the Empires.”
At least we speak candidly of what shows up in our media. But seriously, our meager abilities to judge others is more than lacking. And there is only one local print media (such media cannot be edited after printing as can digital) that has survived with any substance.
We have many issues of our own culture that need tending to.
Peter Shapter,
Topsail, CBS