A Dolt’s Guide to War

Enjoying an immense privilege denied to presidents and prime ministers, I let a full week go by without placing a word on paper about September 11. No wonder politicians despise columnists, we are champion second guessers. I’ll try not to.

Having taken seven days, one more than God needed to create the universe, I still don’t know what I would do if I were President Bush. Natural cautions come readily enough to mind. Don’t rely on the Central Intelligence Agency, which was five years late discovering that the Cold War had ended. Don’t rely on the FBI, which couldn’t find a top Russian spy in its head office for fifteen years. But he knows those things, One can only wish wisdom for him.

What thoughts might be worth passing along to the ham and egger class, to which I belong? Here are a baker’s dozen:

1. Nothing can bring back the dead, so retaliation will be as effective six months from now as tomorrow.

2. Expect serious military mistakes on our side. Generals always fight the last war’s battles. It’s natural. Those are the only battles in their text book. Given time, generals will emerge who know how to fight today’s war.

3. There is no Dragon King to be tracked to his lair and slain. Terrorism has many armies. By one count there are 28 international terrorist organizations. In all of them are spear carriers ready and anxious to take over when a leader is killed.

4. Let’s not be lulled into a sense of confidence by using the word war. It carries the assumption that we always win. We don’t The United States lost the war in Viet Nam. Both Canada .and the United States lost the war on drugs.

5. Don’t mistake words for bullets. If words alone were effective, all the terrorists in the world would have surrendered a week ago and would now be devoting the rest of their lives to Meals on Wheels and other fine community services.

6. For everyone’s sake, use accurate words. President Bush did nothing for his just cause by calling the attacks cowardly. Many words describe those attacks. Vicious, cruel, inhuman, barbaric, savage and depraved are a few. Cowardly is not one of them. Man has no greater love than that he give up his life for his cause. We admired Japanese kamikaze pilots for it and one of America’s revolutionary heroes regretted that he had but one life to give up for his country.

7. Do not trust newspapers, radio or television to bring you complete truth. Their objective is to be popular. They follow public opinion but can not lead. Facts inconvenient to popular ideas of the moment somehow get lost.

8. Religion has led to senseless massacres since before the Crusades. Remember that most Muslims are Muslim in the same way most Christians are Christian, a matter of convention, handy for births, deaths and weddings and a code for general good conduct. In all religions most of the people fear and dread the True Believer who, secure in his own righteousness, can commit atrocities.

9. Secretary of State Colin Powell says that the American policy of killing off inconvenient foreign leaders, abandoned in 1975, could be revived. Let’s trust that he and others will remember that the problem with the murder policy was that it never worked. Francisco Madera’s revolution went right on in Mexico after Americans arranged his murder and that is but one example. Castro is still alive and well.

10. Be aware that attacks as barbarous as those of September 11 awake dark impulses in us. Thus the commentator who phoned to CBC’s talk show to urge that when the terrorists are found, not only should they be removed but also all their fathers, mothers, children, grandchildren, cousins and close friends. As with cutting out a cancer, he said, you must get it all. The Waffen SS said exactly the same when they were herding Europe’s Jews into the gas chambers.

11. Face reality. Our lives are going to be narrower and for the foreseeable future, poorer. Going through hour long checks at airports will be one of the lesser dismal necessities.

12. Beware our rulers just as we must beware terrorists. Canada was already well down the road to a police state with ever more laws, ever more surveillance and ever less rights to the presumption of innocence. With the spectre of Sept. 11 to display, rulers will have a convenient excuse for more and often unjustified police state policies.

13. Keep the faith. Here and all over the world, ordinary men and women are usually better people than their rulers. Eventually they prevail.

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September/03