Isn’t it incredible how mainstream media mavens and off-the-cuff pundits alike can agree on a word or phrase to sum up their utter disengagement from and ignorance of what’s going on away from our shores? I mean, has cell phone service failed in Washington and New York today? Somebody could have picked up an old blower or Version XIIVVMM thing in their pocket and placed a call to…I don’t know…Yemen or Beirut or Kyiv and asked them what the sky looks like today. See any missile contrails? Heard any explosions lately?

My point being, there is already a wider war in the Middle East and elsewhere, and it’s a bloody one. That very much includes the very wide, very bloody, very warlike war being waged by Ukraine against the Russian aggressors who have already taken a slice of their country and want to take a lot more.

The Crisis Group, a non-profit established with the aim of “Preventing War and Shaping Peace” has a handy list they call “Ten Conflicts to Watch in 2024” that includes the usual suspects, Ukraine and Gaza. They also list what they too call the “Wider Middle East war,” Sudan, Ethiopia, The Sahel (mainly Niger), Haiti, Armenia-Azerbaijan, and just for good measure, U.S.-China.

The Geneva Academy, which maintains an extensive list of armed conflicts around the world that totals out at 110, believe it or not, counts “more than 45 armed conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa,” including the ones in the news as well as Cyprus, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Western Sahara.

In Europe, the Geneva Academy counts seven armed conflicts, including the obvious, Ukraine, as well as Moldova, Georgia, and Armenia-Azerbaijan.

In Asia, they have 21 armed conflicts going on in Afghanistan, India, Myanmar, Pakistan and The Philippines. Two “international armed conflicts” are happening between China and India, as well as between India and Pakistan.

Latin America lucks out with only two “armed conflicts,” according to Geneva Academy: armed violence involving criminal organizations and drug cartels in Mexico and Columbia, although I don’t know what they would call what’s happening daily on the streets of Caracas, Venezuela and elsewhere in that beleaguered country.

What has caught the attention of the headline writers and bookers for cable news shows is, of course, movement of tanks and troops by Israel tonight into Lebanon. They can get pictures of that, although the armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and other radical Muslim groups has been bloody and deadly for decades.

I suppose “wider” has a role to play in buzzword-ville because what they’re really talking about is the war between Israel and Hezbollah and Gaza spreading further through the Middle East. Although, once again, when Iran recently sent several hundred missiles and armed drones into the skies over Israel, the so-called “wider war” is already here, wouldn’t you think?

Speaking of “wider,” it would seem that the United States, which has some 100 military installations of one kind or another around the world, should be on all the lists. The U.S., after all, is currently supplying troops and arms to multiple countries including Iraq, Israel, Ukraine, Western Europe, The Philippines, Japan, South Korea, the waters of South China Sea, and we don’t even know for sure what we’ve got going on in places like Africa, Thailand, Guam, and other garden spots around the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

So, wider war? As Martin Short's Ed Grimley used to say on Saturday Night Live, Excuuuuuse me!