The question is not whether this is a war

It’s more like how bad is it, and how big is it going to get? Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said circumstances across the globe are shaping up into a world war:

Look what you’ve been covering: North Korea firing missiles. We say there’ll be consequences, there are none. The North Koreans fire seven missiles on our Fourth of July; bombs going off in Mumbai, India; a war in Afghanistan with sanctuaries in Pakistan. As I said a minute ago, the, the Iran/Syria/Hamas/Hezbollah alliance. A war in Iraq funded largely from Saudi Arabia and supplied largely from Syria and Iran. The British home secretary saying that there are 20 terrorist groups with 1200 terrorists in Britain. Seven people in Miami videotaped pledging allegiance to al-Qaeda, and 18 people in Canada being picked up with twice the explosives that were used in Oklahoma City, with an explicit threat to bomb the Canadian parliament, and saying they’d like to behead the Canadian prime minister. And finally, in New York City, reports that in three different countries people were plotting to destroy the tunnels of New York.

I mean, we are in the early stages of what I would describe as the third world war, and frankly, our bureaucracies aren’t responding fast enough, we don’t have the right attitude about this…

Gingrich may be over the top with the forecast of WWIII (or not), but he does connect the dots well. We have been shadowboxing with Iran and now North Korea for a while now. (Read the whole conversation on Meet the Press here.)

Diplomaticspeak is necessary while furious negotiating goes on behind doors, but there comes a time when talking about the talk is just not working. We’re clearly in that time.

President Bush made the comment in Chicago recently that ‘different words mean different things to different people’, so six different countries writing a resolution that has teeth does take time. True enough. But we’re running out of both — words and time.

Therefore, what? The war is escalating, and more people are getting devastated. Pick a relief organization (here’s one) and help somehow. And be informed.