<HTML>This isnt about economics. One of the most shameful sights in recent days have been the attempts made to examine the effect of all this on the price of shares. It was heartening to see one American guest on the BBC slapping such a question down in one interview.
To talk about survival of the fittest is to take the first steps onto a very dangerous and slippery slope. It implies that the worlds poor and disadvantaged are in someway unfit, that they deserve their poverty and misery and suffering. Further, it opens the door to arguments that they are different from us and that we are better than them. We all know where those kinds of arguments lead and what kind of final solutions they throw up. I dont want to believe that this is what you really think.
I've just been reading the Drudge Report news website. Talk of war prevails and your cherished 82nd Airborne was mentioned more than once. The US hawks seem to be collectivly drooling over the prospect of invading and/or destroying Afghanistan, the worlds poorest and most backward country. A country wracked by two decades of civilwar and 'ruled' by the CIA's bastard child, the Taliban. A country which has seen half its population flee their tender merices to become the worlds unwanted flotsam. A country where the UN says five million people are staring starvation in the face this winter.
Perhaps the 82nd Airborne will be flying in food aid? Perhaps the full might of the US will be brought to bear on rebuilding the basic infrastructure of modern life which was destroyed in the Wests proxy war against Soviet imperialism? More likely, if those who share your blinkered gung-ho, kick ass outlook on life get their way, hundreds if not thousands of innocent people will be sacrificed to satisfy a bloodlusty desire for revenge and hundreds if not thousands more will be driven into the waiting arms of the Bin Ladens of this world.
Derek</HTML>
