Hazardous illegal transplant

Doctors would certainly agree that surgically severing an ill- fitting appendage is far less complex and dangerous than carrying out a heart transplant. This is the essential difference between Gulf War I and impending Gulf War II; but, unfortunately, warmongers are seldom as objective as surgeons.

Imagine a population full of resentment toward an imperial power and its progenitor-turned-lapdog whose economic sanctions have caused dreadful deprivations and whose money and weapons are used in a neighboring land to kill and persecute its ethnic kin. Then imagine that imperial power with its lapdog (the population's former colonial master) raining bombs and missiles down like confetti at a wedding, but with the aim of ensuring the body bags and funerals stay well away from the cosseted and comforted folk back home. Parts of cities are destroyed, thousands are killed and mutilated and millions flee.

The heart is cut out and replaced with one that the rogue surgeon prefers, but it is ill suited and faces rejection. The enfeebled land is in turmoil; despair and resentment reign within and amongst brethren without. The surgeon reverts to more drugs to suppress and sedate, but kith and kin become enraged.

The imperial power and its lapdog face resistance at every turn and even their life-blood is threatened.

The quack surgeon reflects on a previous failed heart transplant -- Vietnam! But Vietnam was a peasant society and had neither oil nor enraged kith and kin with axes to grind! Now, though, he should know from Sept. 11, sparks can fly!

FRANK RICHARDSON

Tangerang, Banten