The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Monday, March 24, 2003, Chandigarh, India

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS

50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

M A I L B A G

USA has no respect for UN

This refers to Mr Hari Jaisingh’s front-page editorial titled “The road to nowhere” (March 21, 2003). So what was imminent and inevitable has happened. The war has begun. This is sad. War does not always solve problems.

It is an open secret that America is democratic at home and dictator outside. And it is said that America has no friends, but only interests. It is all oil politics. According to reports, America wants to control the oil in the region. No regime can be changed by the use of external force. It must be by the people of that country, as it is their internal matter. In today's unipolar world, the USA seems to play the role of a super cop; a judge of the world.

By attacking Iraq, America has shown that it does not care for the views and opinions of not only the rest of the world but also the people of its own country. The USA has no backing of the United Nations for this action on Iraq.

The Bush Administration says that under the UN Security Council Resolution 1441, it has legal sanctity to disarm Mr Saddam Hussein by force. This interpretation of the Resolution is wrong, misleading and illogical. If the views of Mr Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair is taken as true and correct, then why did they try diplomatic and pressure tactics to pass the second resolution in the UN to authorise them to wage a war against Iraq? Why were they using different methods to secure the majority of the UN and asking veto-power members not to veto their resolution. And when they knew that their second resolution was not going to be passed by the UN, they backtracked and withdrew the resolution. In one stroke, they made the UN irrelevant. This is unilateralism.

To attack Iraq without the UN sanction is totally illegal. It would have been better if Iraq had been given more time to disarm peacefully, and destroy the weapons of mass destruction.

Gurdershan Singh, Chandigarh

A death’s feast

This refers to Mr Hari Jaisingh’s front-page editorial “The road to nowhere”. The Tribune Editor has rightly pointed out that “war as an instrument of policy can never solve a problem”.

“War is a death's feast”, said George Herbert. Surely, war is death and destruction while peace is life — alive and kicking.Wars may dazzle for a while but victories of peace permanently benefit mankind. Agra’s Taj Mahal of Agra and the USA’s Statue of Liberty are victories of peace. The kings and commanders of old become dust, but these beauties will continue to inspire the coming generations.

Appeals and anti-war demonstrations all over the world fell on the deaf ears of George W. Bush and Tony Blair. As a result, American and British armed forces have struck against Iraq. All peace-loving nations can well imagine the tremendous loss of men and material, which could have been avoided, if President Bush had acted to solve the problem through negotiations.

The flagrant violation of the UN Charter and ignoring the will of the world community is a dangerous signal and a great threat to the future of world peace and harmony. It is time all peace-loving nations of the world united and made all-out efforts to stop this bloody war, without any further loss of time.

R.C. Sharma, Kurukshetra

The Bush doctrine

Apropos of your editorial “War on terror, this?” (March 19), the attack on Iraq, despite protests and condemnation of President Bush’s dictatorial and unilateral approach in going ahead with his dangerous doctrine, will endanger the very existence of the UN. The USA will continue to do politically, economically and militarily whatever it wants to do with scant regard to international norms, opinion and treaties. Countries like India have much to worry about, particularly with Pakistan’s anti-India propaganda and it’s being of strategic use to the USA.

The world may continue to grapple with the moral and diplomatic question of the US invasion on Iraq and the economic analysts and planners may calculate and find solutions to the staggering impact of such a catastrophe on the world economy. Yet, the fact remains that every nation, concerned with its own parochial interests, displayed callous indifference to the growing menace of the super power.

It was during the so-called “war on terror” in Afghanistan that the USA gave itself the right to arrest and punish anybody anywhere in the world and to attack any sovereign nation which to the American mind provided support, directly or indirectly, to terrorism. In fact that was the time when the world powers should have stood up united against such an approach. The UN should have asserted its position as a force to safeguard the sovereignty of its member states. The war on Iraq is only the first and small result of that indifferent and inertia of the international community.

Ved Guliani, Hisar

Enough is enough

The war on Iraq is highly deplorable. It is not the weapons of Iraq that have ever posed a threat to the world but America’s weapons. The USA has now convinced the international community that America is the super power No 1 — the nation that takes contracts for world peace. The international community should at least now chain the mighty, mad Bull to prevent further loss of life in the name of peace. It is time the UN and all peace-loving countries told the USA, enough is enough.

Dr Rajesh Lakhanpaul, Mukerian (Hoshiarpur)

Who is the lion?

I have learnt the lion and the lamb story in my childhood. The lion wants to eat the lamb. But how? The former tells the latter that he was making its drinking water dirty. The direction of the flow of water is known to all. In the present situation, there is no need to tell who is the lion and who is the lamb.

To show that he is all powerful, President Bush has attacked Iraq. If America is not stopped on its tracks today, it will attack any country in the world. I welcome the Government of India’s deep anguish and disappointment over the attack on Iraq.

Indu, Chandigarh

Advice to Bush

President Bush should recall what Mr Eisenhower had once said: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in final sense a theft from those who are hungry and are not fed; those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone, it is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron”.

Surinder Mohan Batta, Badhani (Pathankot)

Misplaced patriotic passions & loyalties

A US politician once said that the trick is to lie often enough and loud enough and people start to believe what you say as being the truth. Indeed as always on such occasions, this time too the first casualty of war, has been truth. The propaganda machinery of the vested western interests is churning overtime heap-loads of bull-cookies for consumption by their domestic audiences in order to whip up their misplaced patriotic passions and loyalties.

Simultaneously, they endeavour to blind the world at large as well into believing in the authenticity of their projected cause. The saddest part is that for the American citizens, used as they are to realistically violent computer games, with the tailor-made propaganda, this war offers them visions of just what they are so addicted to.

The full value of propaganda was not lost upon the Germans and the British during World War II. Clear about the importance, impact and the effect propaganda would have on their enemy, they churned very effective propaganda by specially created ‘machinery’/’cell’. Valuable lessons can be learnt from the USA’s propaganda (the so-called precision bombing during the attack on Iraq now and a decade ago, even in Afghanistan not long ago).

For some time now, Pakistan too has been waging a rabid propaganda war against India. They seem to be succeeding in building to crescendo the anti-India beat of their war drums. A persistent and consistent provocation on their part (skirmishes on the border, insurgency and terrorism), supplemented with a ceaseless and copious doses of caustic propaganda must be silently playing havoc with psychological aspect of the health of our forces and civilians alike. One can’t help but concede that the Pakistani propaganda is professionally managed by especially their state-run television media, through rather engrossing plays/skits and documentaries. Compare these with those on our TV and the neighbours win hands down in their effort to entice audiences.

Our own leadership, on the other hand, seems too complacent. The leadership of our own country, on the other hand, unfortunately, seems oblivious to the real value of propaganda — both positive, as well as negative propaganda. Silence as a response may often be an excellent choice but it isn’t always practical. Precious little is being done to counter this propaganda or the damage done therefrom. Not to respond at all or to do so half-heartedly, with ill-produced propaganda films and programmes which, even their makers would not like to sit through, is utter foolhardiness if nothing else.

My contention is that if the propaganda machinery isn’t operative in our country, one ought to be immediately set up by the Defence/Home Ministry in collaboration with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, in order to counter the damage our neighbour is trying to inflict on us. Any amount of counter-terrorism measures, in my opinion, would fall short of the mark, unless they are supplemented with strong doses of both negative and positive propaganda.

Vivek Khanna, Panchkula