Letter of the Day - Einstein's dark warning

THE EDITOR, Sir:

ALBERT EINSTEIN left us a dark warning: "I do not know how World War III will be fought, but I do know that World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

Observers and participants alike, including President Bush, agree that the American bombing of Afghanistan is the start of a long war. Its global nature is underscored by Bush's exhortation to Hindus and Moslems in India/Kashmir to put aside their local disputes and join the rest of the world in putting down terrorists.

It is etched on our local consciousness by the recent meeting of Caribbean leaders (attended by all those who did not have their own petty squabbles to see to). All nations great and small are affected and will continue to be. We have not yet cared (or perhaps dared) to name it World War III; yet beyond a doubt, that is what we are now embarked on. (On this point, I should dearly love to be proven wrong.)

It is a new kind of war, not against nations but terrorists all terrorists - a long list indeed! The word 'terrorist' has been with us since the late 1940s and is by now a soiled cliché. An American philosophy professor said to me 50 years ago, "A terrorist is any guy with a gun or a bomb who you happen not to like." The latest cliché' - that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter complicates the issue and not just a little.

Einstein saw the third war would not have a civilised end. All 20th century wars ended in a fragile peace and made some rich. The economic benefits were of course not evenly shared. The United States of America suffered fewer casualties and made more money than any of its allies in World War I and again in World War II. The latter, together with the break up of the USSR, left the USA the world's richest nation by far and its only superpower.

Now, the superpower has got body blows to its largest and richest city and its capital. It is bellowing for sympathy from the whole world - and for help in rounding up every last terrorist and treating him without mercy.

I am sad, and sadder day by day, for my grandchildren and my two great-grandchildren.

I am, etc.,

JOHN SEARS

Kingston 6

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