No powerful nation wants ever to take a first step to make peace a cyclical phenomenon, for instance by reducing military expenditures and trying to democratize our countries. As long as we wage a war for one reason or another, we engulf ourselves in waging wars in a cyclical fashion. Take this war on Terrorism. Our White House officials are saying that this war on Terrorism will take many years and that the bombing of Afghanistan may go on till next Summer or till our mission is accomplished. And I question which mission. The mission to wage a war against terrorism? The mission to take Osama Bin Laden dead or alive? Foreign policies supporting the political "status quo" are in effect maintaining the current warfare in the Middle East. And now we have the foreign policy of "quid pro quo" as we partially cancel Pakistan's foreign debt in return of its support against the evil-doers. Couldn't have been more noble to cancel this foreign debt which has kept Pakistan from growing socially and economically?

In November President George Bush will be talking with Russian President Vladimir Putin so that he could have his blessing to break the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty and spend more money in the star war. We need a star war to fight the new war of the 21st century against terrorism, and I wonder why we don't strive for peace and social development on earth.

Academic Garda Kharmi views the bombing of Afghanistan in this way "It's like bombing Sicily to try to beat the Mafia." And few days before being murdered, one Sicilian journalist explained the Mafia phenomenon in this way "Mafia members are in parliament, they are sometimes ministers, they are bankers, and they are those who at this moment are at the top of the nation."

And I ask another question: Where are the evil-doers?

References

Bush and Putin hail new relationship, BBC News, October 21, 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1612000/1612078.stm

War View: 'It's like bombing Sicily to try to beat the Mafia', BBC News, October 22, 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1608000/1608752.stm

The mafia, Italian Studies, University of Toronto http://www.erin.utoronto.ca/~w3ita/ITA235Y/protected/mafia2.html