A dangerous war-dynamic

There is a certain irony in the fact that those who were the victims of paranoia in the 1930s and 1940s in Europe are now the perpetrators of it in the Middle East. The Jews of Israel seem to be as obsessed with the possibility of annihilation by the Arabs as the Germans were apoplectic about the presumed alliance between the Jews and the communist Slavs of eastern Europe. Just as Hitler was laughingly appeased then, so the U.S. is appeasing Ariel Sharon today as he adds Jenin to the earlier atrocities he committed in the Shatilla and Sabra refugee camps in 1982.

However, the similarity with the pre-World War II scenario does end there. Washington's unilateralist policy after World War I resulted in a weak and largely ineffective League of Nations that was the precursor of today's United Nations, which is also being seriously attenuated by U.S. unilateralism. Thus, Ariel Sharon is able to thumb his nose at the U.N. today, just as Hitler did to the League of Nations in the 1930s.

The so-called "war against terrorism" has become little more than a pretext of the cynical for wars that suit them. While Pakistan and India posture, Israel attacks and Iraq waits in the wings, there is a serious risk of a conflagration that could embroil all of them and suck many other nations in besides.

George W. Bush's own family made the fortune that propelled him to the U.S. presidency through prewar collaboration with the Nazis, and Bush is once again riding high on a war-dynamic that could, for most of us, lead to disaster.

FRANK RICHARDSON

Tangerang, Banten