People just pawns in the game of war

THE EDITOR: Newsday’s Editorial “Waging Foolish War” March 18, 2003 page 10. This editorial was well written, it contained a wealth of facts and may some day win a prize for journalism.

But a very big “but”, your editorial rests on a false assumption that wars and the fall out from wars are avoidable. I keep a copy of “The Prince” by Nicolo Machiavelli and a copy of the King James Bible on my bedroom table and I refer to them constantly and do you know what? They both agree with each other. The heart of man is wicked and deceitful above all other. In the international arena there is no court house (forget the ICC); no policeman, no rule, except the law of survival — “The strong survive and the weak are crushed to the wall.” There is no honesty, no morality, no religion except the religion of brute force. All is expediency, what is good may not be expedient and what is expedient may not be good. You mention the suffering of the Iraqi people — the bible says “if the leaders are bad the people will suffer.” The death toll is projected to be 260,000. But you forget the $250,000 Kurds killed by Saddam’s poison gas.

Nations do not go to war out of sentimentality, they go to war out of selfish self-interest. Persons have pointed out that Manuel Noreiga of Panama and Saddam Hussein were friends of America but nations do not have eternal friends or eternal enemies. They have only eternal interests. Today’s friend may be tomorrow’s enemy. We are conned into believing that life is precious, but I once read a hand-book which stated quite boldly “in imposing a dictatorship on a country you must remember that a human life has no more value than that of a cockroach.” I do not know why America is attacking Iraq — I have listened to and read the hype and the reasons advanced can be tagged “all of the above” or “none of the above.” Wars are the most stupid, inconvenient, wasteful and destructive means of settling disputes between nations but try telling that to a nation under attack or under “threat of a terrorist attack when smiles are no substitute for bayonets when an aggressor strikes or is backing an aggressor to strike.”

JACK LEARMOND-CRIQUI
Diego Martin