By Graham Macafee
Canberra, Australia
13 March 2004

With the bad guys terrorising rail travellers in Madrid and elsewhere and
the world's self-proclaimed 'good guys' (such as the President of the US
and the Prime Minister of Australia) using TV footage of dead and maimed
civilians to terrorise voters into NOT changing political horses in
mid-stream - it may not be such a good idea to ask for divine assistance.

With vile self-interest so rampant among both the good and the bad guys of
Planet Earth, any self-respecting deity may decide that dodos, dinasaurs
and the human race are failed experiements - that it's time to give moral
leadership of Planet Earth over to cockroaches for a few billion years!

I wish somebody could explain for me what's the differecnce (apart from
some practitioners wearing neatly pressed uniforms) between 'waging war'
and 'waging terror' - especially when the words are run together
such as in 'waging war on terror'.

Oh I forget - when WE bomb and maim civilians it's OK and above board - cos
we're the good guys and any sacifice (by folk who get in the way of
'progess') is worth the wonder and joy of the survivors being 'civilised'
by us.

But when practitioners in scruffy uniforms or (Horror of Horrors) no
pressed uniforms at all do the bombing, no words are sufficient to describe
the infamy!  Which brings us to the subject of 'waging war of terror'.

Waging war on terror usually means bombing the bombers - or bombing people
you suspect (with no evidence except paranoia or an abiding love of bombs)
MAY become bombers if you don't bomb them to bits first.

And even if it later turns out that they did NOT have the kind of bombs you
thought they had (as in Iraq) you're not the 'terrroist' (for having bombed
bombless suspects) they are - for having been the focus of your paranoia!

Maybe my unease over the sematic and moral swamp of 'waging war on terror'
is due to a false expectation that, in a civilised society, logic and clear
thinking should have some kind of influence over high-tech animal behaviour.

But that's not what a detachment of highly intelligent space explorers from
Galaxy R-234 would find upon arriving on Planet Earth.

Despite some fancy ant nests and big cities, the detachment would find no
civilisation at all - just lots of animals (some two-legged, some
four-legged, some in fancy uniforms and some without) all fighting for
dominance, territory, food and sex - with occasional (but misleading) signs
that civilisation on Planet Earth has not completely gone to Hell in a
handcart - such as dogs wagging their tails and magpies warbling.

But as far as humans go, a detachment of space explorers could well
conclude that (in the interests of a more attractive environment)
it was time cockroaches were given a go at World Supremacy!