War On Terror? Please, not again!

I have a lot of things to write about, like the hysterical 'five star' panelists on different news channels (making most of the moment). NDTV even made Shobha De's cliched phrase, 'Enough Is Enough', their campaign punchline. Ms.De definitely did not feel enough is enough when Raj Thackerey and MNS were terrorising ordinary Mumbaikars (she even went on to justify his reasons in a feature in the TOI). And she the writer of trite and terrible books was busy criticizing the oratory skills of Dr.Manmohan Singh when the rest of the country was wondering how many more will die. There is more on this topic but it will have to wait.

Another upcoming post is on the 'cooperation' Pakistan is offering in the form silly games and placebos and of course America's benignly patronising attitude towards them.

The other topic that will come later is the one that was mentioned by a friend in his comments, the option of India bombing the terror camps in Pakistan. I have plenty to say on the futility of precision aerial bombing (it is never precise and will surely lead to war) but it will also have to wait.

I have to first write about the term 'War on terror', made popular, in recent times, by a very, very short-sighted man who happens to be the outgoing President of USA. This man went on to prove to his country and the whole world how stupid and misdirected his 'War on Terror' was when he decided to attack (A)Iraq (bcoz Daddy couldn't finish the job, earlier). I really don't need to go into what a disaster this particular cowboy's adventure was.

Why am I bringing this up now? Because there are a bunch of jokers out there who happen to be running news channels and news magazines under the banner "India Today Group" who have decided to adopt this term-'War On Terror' to generate hysteria to gain TRP and readership. Not only is this extremely irresponsible it is also very dangerous in such vulnerable times. The loud and belligerent phrase that destroyed Iraq has too much connotation attached to it to have its meaning mistaken for a mere nationalistic phrase of protest.

I must add here that 'Headlines Today' or 'Aaj Tak' are not the only TV channels that are war mongering, plenty of others are. Why does the electronic media so desperately want 'action', for more continuous live TV? Many out there are in an adrenaline driven zone now (like a caffeine hangover), after days of watching noisy armed action on TV and listening to truckloads of ranting 'opinion leaders'. I am hoping things will calm down and people will realise that the soldiers they are so excited seeing in combat are human not 'GI Joe' toys and realise the cost of what they are being egged on to demand.

We have the an elaborate blueprint of one such failed war. Let us take a look and learn our lessons before we start demanding similar solutions.

The poem below was written around the eighteenth century but I think it tells the story of George.W. Bush's recent 'War on Terror' very eloquently.

War

The victories of mind,

Are won for all mankind;

But war wastes what it wins,

Ends worse than it begins,

And is a game of woes,

Which nations always lose:

Though tyrant tyrant kill,

The slayer liveth still.

---Ebenezer Elliot