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Dear Khalid
I will address your
question in a moment, but first I would like to return to the first issue I
raised. You used the term “war economy” in a way I considered
inappropriate. You have now responded twice. In your first response you
answered my claim, but I refuted your counter-argument. Your second posting
has taken a completely new direction. I am left wondering whether you have
anything new to say in defense of the “war economy” claim, or whether you
accept that my objection is valid.
One aspect of your latest
posting seems to suggest that you have changed your mind. You ask why America
spends so many billions of dollars on arms. Well, if you believe that America has
a “war economy”, then the answer is simple: to make a profit! If America
truly benefits from arms manufacture more than it does from peaceful trade,
whatever it spends it must receive back from sales – plus some extra. Of
course, I do not believe this to be true, but don’t you?
Now, to your current
question. It is of course a very loaded question, rather like the old joke
one, “When did you stop beating your wife?” It appears designed to extract
only a self-incriminating reply. Would it be fair if I asked you, “Do you
believe in a dishonorable peace?”? After all, if the Palestinians did not fight
a continuing war against Israel,
it would be a dishonorable peace, would it not?
However, I am no
pacifist. Everyone, hawk as well as dove, realizes that war is a despicable
and always tragic action; only a fool would deny it. However, I have no hesitation
in saying that there have been wars and invasions that I have reluctantly
approved of. You say it is better to spend the billions on hospitals and on
education. Of course it is. But it is not really a matter of “believing in”
war; war can be a legitimate response to intolerable situations in the real
world which you and I inhabit. It is easy to say idealistically “war is
wrong”, but you and I have the luxury of not having to make decisions in
the real world, so we can afford to be idealistic. When the world becomes
perfect, by definition war will be unnecessary. I do not like it if someone
approaches me with a knife. However, when that person is a surgeon, I
accept that it may be painful but necessary. I believe that some warfare is
like surgery.
The world is not, and
never will be, a utopia. With some effort and a lot of luck, it may inch
ever closer to paradise. However, progress will be slow and painful, and it
will never actually get there. I am grateful that, for the first time in
history, a sizeable middle class has emerged in many countries, including
the two that you and I are lucky enough to live in. I hope that the
comparative comfort and safety of such countries can be extended to others
in the near future. In fact, if I were religious, I would pray for this.
But I am not.
In some cases, it is
fair to claim that it would be cruel not to support war. Here are two wars
that I have supported, though there are many others. First is the Normandy
D-Day invasion. Nineteen thousand French civilians died in the first week,
yet the French cheered, even while the allied naval bombardment reduced
their houses to matchwood, because they knew that they would soon be free
from tyranny. My second choice is one that may surprise you: the invasion
of Cambodia by Vietnam in
1979. This, of course, was to remove the egregious Pol
Pot from power. The Vietnamese invaded for a mixture of reasons, some of
which were self-interested. However, they removed a brutal tyrant, and I
supported that. I have chosen this in order to show that I support some
wars even when they involve interference by one country in the affairs of
another. For what is the alternative? Does a leader have the right to be a
tyrant merely because he is indigenous? I find this a heinous assumption.
So did most of the downtrodden citizens of Cambodia, most of whom adorned
the tanks of the invaders with flowers, despite the fact that the
Vietnamese were traditional rivals.
Last year Burma was
hit by cyclone Nargus. Remember? Tens of
thousands of Burmese died because their baleful regime refused to allow the
unfettered access of aid convoys. They kept making excuses to keep
charitable services out, because they could not bear the idea of foreigners
having contact with local people. No war was fought, but if the Americans
had sent in the marines, I would have supported it. No question. Of course,
any nation or group of nations cannot take such a move lightly, and it
should be done only after the most rigorous diplomacy. However, I support
it in extreme cases. Burma
is one, and Zimbabwe
is another.
You mention a war
between the western and Muslim worlds. I hope this is just a hypothesis or
a piece of whimsy, because there certainly is no such war. At least, not
from the western side, though of course there are violent jihadists who are
at war with the west. It disturbs me how many people in the Muslim world,
even self-confessed moderates, seem to assume that the west is in some way
at war with Islam. This is a false and dangerous judgment. I say “dangerous”
because the mad bombers use this assumption to recruit and indoctrinate
callow and impressionable young men. It is very easy to see that it is
nonsense. Take the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
These wars would have been fought the same way if the Iraqi and Afghani
people were Taoists, animists or Jehovah’s Witnesses. The fact that they
are Muslim is incidental. The United States
invaded Haiti,
which is Catholic. Does anyone suggest that this shows an anti-Catholic
bias in the Protestant White House? The idea is preposterous.
All this is a kind of
background to my tentative support for the invasion of Iraq.
However, that is a whole new subject, and a very complex one.
Regards
Peter
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