The world is going mad, i.e. its leaders are trying to redress imbalances by doing too little too late in the case of the environment, and panicking with regard to terrorism.
And the terrorists, like all fanatics, don't care who they kill and maim, including their own, citing "the end justifies the means".
The hell it does! The latest atrocity in Amman, Jordan, killed at least 57 people and wounded more than 100. The majority of victims were Jordanian civilians.
According to news reports, al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, were being held responsible.
A statement on an Islamist Website claiming to be al-Qaeda said "a group of our best lions" had launched the attacks in Jordan.
"Some hotels were chosen, which the Jordanian despot had turned into a back yard for the enemies of the faith, the Jews and crusaders," the message said, signed by the group's spokesperson. Its authenticity could not be verified.
What is interesting is that Israelis staying at the Radisson on Wednesday had been evacuated before the attacks and escorted back home "apparently due to a specific security threat", according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Amos N. Guiora, a former senior Israeli counterterrorism official, said in a phone interview with London's The Times that sources in Israel had also told him about the pre-attack evacuations.
"It means there was excellent intelligence that this thing was going to happen," said Guiora, a former leader of the Israel Defence Forces who now heads the Institute for Global Security Law and Policy at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
"The question that needs to be answered is, why weren't the Jordanians working at the hotel similarly removed?"
Well, maybe the Israelis didn't tell them! It is unlikely that the Jordanian authorities would not have taken action had they had the intelligence transmitted to them.
Suicide bombers targeted three luxury hotels - the Grand Hyatt hotel, the nearby Radisson SAS and the Days Inn hotel.
The television pictures of the banqueting hall, after the blast at the Radisson where a wedding reception was taking place, were heartbreaking. A white satin shoe lay among the wreckage, but the bride and groom survived.
What should have been the happiest day in their lives turned into a horrific nightmare. The tearstained-faced, shell-shocked groom said that he had lost his father, father-in-law and other close relatives in the blast.
Terrorism, like any other war, perpetuates man's inhumanity to man.
But it is not just terrorism that is causing destruction in our societies. Mother Earth is also giving us plenty of warning signs that enough is enough. The goose is running out of golden eggs and is throwing up all the force feeding it has endured all over the place.
Volcanoes are erupting. The earth's core is rebelling. This year we have seen devastation caused by hurricanes, a tsunami and earthquakes.
Not enough aid is reaching the people hit by the last earthquake in Pakistan - and many will die from starvation or hypothermia this winter.
The disaster in New Orleans, caused not only by Katrina but also because of the ill preparedness of the city for its aftermath, sent the US, still not fully recovered from the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack, reeling again.
And we heard that much of the devastation could have been avoided had the authorities listened to scientists' warnings about the encroachment of marshland in New Orleans.
Greedy developers continue to ignore objective environmental impact assessments (not ones paid for by the developers), and so do the politicians, stating that 'progress' and investment are threatened if developers don't get their way.
One wonders whether developers, who have hoarded vast amounts of money by raping marshlands, the countryside and any open space, have booked a place on Mars to retire to!
And I am only half way through why I think the world is going mad. Not only do we have terrorism and nature's revenge to contend with; the dispossessed are rising and rioting.
Politicians have ignored minorities' needs and have turned a blind eye to institutional racism, which has left young, energetic people - mainly blacks - jobless, and living in third-rate housing in suburban ghettos.
The last tangible example of this is France, but Britain had its riots in 1981, Margaret Thatcher's days, in Toxteth, a suburb of Liverpool, which were followed by copycat disturbances all over the country.
Anatole Kaletsky writing in the London The Times on Thursday argues that strong economic growth offers the most reliable solution to social alienation.
For many people, including the poor and marginalised racial minorities, the rapid growth of the economy, which averaged an unprecedented 3.6 per cent in the seven years following the Toxteth riots, provided new economic opportunities and therefore hope in the UK.
He also commented that the failure of the French police and the French civil service to recruit sufficient numbers of Muslims is perhaps the clearest indication that Nicolas Sarkozy, the French Interior Minister, has been right in suggesting that affirmative action of some kind will be needed to overcome the institutionalised racism, whether deliberate or unconscious, of the French state.
Kaletsky argues that one direct consequence of affirmative action was large-scale recruitment of racial minorities into the government and especially the police, helping to reduce, though not completely eliminate, the racism in US law enforcement.
Thou shalt kill
The second paragraph right at the beginning of my article reads: "And the terrorists, like all fanatics, don't care who they kill and maim, including their own, citing 'the end justifies the means'."
But what I find really shocking is that church leaders are also using that justification.
The following headline in London's The Sunday Times hit me between the eyes last week: "Thou shalt kill: church backs shooting bombers".
The reality is worse than the headline. Now if it were the actual bombers the quote applied to, it would still shock me, coming from church leaders who say there is no justification for euthanasia and abortion; in fact I am not sure how vehement the Church of England is on those issues, but anyway "war is war" is the usual church justification for killing people.
However, the point is that Christopher Morgan and Alex Delmar-Morgan reported that the Church of England has endorsed the shoot-to-kill policy being operated by the Metropolitan police against "suspected" suicide bombers.
"Senior figures in the church believe the necessity of saving the lives of potential bombing victims outweighs the sanctity of a terrorist's life."
But a suspect is not necessarily a terrorist! What happened to the maxim "innocent until proven guilty"?
The church's position, likely to be opposed by the many Christians, who believe killing cannot be justified in any circumstance, is outlined in a paper on terrorism to be debated by the General Synod in a few days' time.
The report, 'Facing the Challenge of Terrorism', states: "Where many lives may be threatened by terrorist acts, the police need to be able to employ lethal force as a last resort - particularly in the case of a suspected suicide bomber, where shooting to kill may be the only effective means of preventing a greater tragedy."
The Mission and Public Affairs Council drew up the document. Its vice-chairman is Tom Butler, Bishop of Southwark.
Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian mistaken for a suicide bomber, was shot dead by officers at Stockwell Underground station in that diocese on July 22.
Alex Pereira, a cousin of de Menezes, commented: "The church must be crazy. It is clear the police don't know how to deal with these situations. The church is completely wrong about this.
"It is so influential this will result in a lot of people agreeing with the shoot-to-kill policy. But shoot to kill will create more suicide bombers instead of getting rid of them."
Bruce Saunders, a canon of Southwark cathedral, said that while killing a suicide bomber might be the only option, it could never be morally just.
"It may be the necessary thing for the pragmatic, or the only thing you can do, but it is never the right thing," he said. "Ethical decisions are not made in a vacuum."
Let's hope the Synod debate will be won by people like Canon Saunders, and that, just like Tony Blair's draconian plans to allow police to detain terror suspects for up to 90 days without charge, the Church of England's support for the shoot-to-kill policy will also get thrown out.
phansen@timesofmalta.com