Whose rules?
Reader comment on item: [Lee Harris on Why the U.S. is] Discarding War's Rules

Submitted by Michael Elvin (United States), Jul 23, 2003 at 12:11

It has been said that war is the terrorism of the strong against the weak, while terrorism is the war of the weak against the strong. The game is over control of the world's dwindling resources in the face of a burgeoning birth rate, and the clear winners are the transnationals ( the 'West') who have defined money, bought with it the land and the water within it, and who control these resources under the rules of 'the game'. It would be nice if the losers in this game were to define their own 'money', evict the westerners from their lands and go their own way, but it happens that as yet they haven't.

Until they do, it is logical to expect them to vow to destroy those who have monopolized the resources of the earth inordinately toward their own private uses. We are talking about war here, and any tactic is as fair or unfair as any other. Did you really expect the weak to play by rules that ensure their continuing defeat? What would be their motivation?

Jomo Kenyatta, the father of his country, once said of the British, "When you first came to this land we held the land, and you held the Bible. You asked us to close our eyes and pray with you, which we did. When we opened our eyes again, you were holding the land and we were holding the Bible."...

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