STPIERRECOLUMN

HENRY PREFERS PERFECTION

The E Mail brings a message from Henry who, to my intense pleasure, is not a friend of mine or even a nodding acquaintance. Perhaps September 11 has made us all pause and think just a little bit more. I have paused and I have thought a little more about people like Henry and my conclusion is that this world would run a lot better without them.

But first, let the man have his say, which he broadcasts to a world he thinks is waiting for his message. The message is that bad as terrorism is, we non-terrorists are pretty damn awful people because we cause terrorism.

In shortened form, this is the Henry message:

1. We should eliminate the use of military force as an instrument of foreign policy.

2. We should eliminate weapons of mass destruction.

3. International arms sales should be abolished.

4. There should be no international policing by individual states. Only the United Nations should act as policeman.

5. Imperialism, the rule of people in one geographic region by people in another geographic region, must be done away with.

One can only wonder that Henry overlooked requirements number six, seven and eight, they being 6. the elimination of world poverty, which is also all our fault; 7. a cure for cancer, for which our industries are responsible and 8. a law forbidding rain on parade days, which the government has done nothing about.

What’s extraordinary about this American Internet document is that in an age and in a country with the highest educational standards the world has ever known, people can remain as empty headed as Henry.

Dear Henry:

1. Ever since the first peace treaty between warring groups, which occurred before written history began, men have been looking for ways to stop killing one another. In the last century there were two immense efforts, first by the League of Nations and second by the United Nations. Both did some good but both stand as witness that you can’t cure the world’s problems by wishing them away. Men of good will are still trying to find this peace. It’s not the desirability that’s in question Henry, it’s how to do it.

2. Haven’t you heard about Russian-American nuclear disarmament? It’s been going on for ten years. Please address today’s problem which is North Korea, China, Israel, Pakistan, India and probably also Iraq, Iran and other states who now have bombs and refuse to discuss disarming themselves. Do you know the words to use to cause them to bury their bombs? Tell us.

3. Also, instead of telling us that banning international arms sales would be nice to do, tell us how to do it and explain why we haven’t been able to accomplish something much simpler, a ban on international narcotics trading.

4. The idea of the United Nations being the world’s only policeman is appealing, as are most of your thoughts. However it would be helpful if you would expatiate on the UN’s role in permitting the killling of several hundred thousand people in Rwanda, whom the UN was supposed to be protecting. You might also care to explain why Hitler was stopped by individual states such as Britain and also little Canada declaring war on him and not by the League of Nations, which was still in existence at that in Geneva, Switzerland. Would you be happier today if Britain and the other nations had refrained from playing policeman and depended on the League to control him?

5. Tell us also, in practical terms, how the domination of small nations by large nations, even if only by the force of economics, can be prevented.

Henry, probably an academic, has never wrapped his mind around the thought that our world is not as simple a place as he would prefer it to be. People are imperfect, the followers as well as the captains and the kings, and do foolish things. There are also people who do bad things, not because of social pressure or had deprived childhoods, they do bad things because they are natural sons of bitches.

We in this country have probably listened to too many Henrys for too many years, thinking that, after all, there’s no law against believing in fairy godmothers and those who do hold such faiths can’t do much harm to the rest of us. But they can. The brighter people, who know right from left in putting on their shoes of a morning, have let people like Henry pretty well run their national broadcasting system and too many of the school and university classrooms. We have all been encouraged to slip into the belief that sweet words and fond wishes can substitute for facts, accordingly, we are now less prepared than we should be for collisions with realities.

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