August 11.
The current conflict in what was Yugoslavia is providing some
interesting lessons for those who want to have their wars in peace,
untroubled by threats of outside intervention.
The first lesson to be learned is what to do to your opponents. Avoid
at all costs putting them in camps, especially if you cannot feed them
and you feel like some torture. That attracts television, newspapers,
and even politicians. Much better to kill them. The dead are not very
interesting to look at, and they certainly cannot talk to the world's
press. ''Three thousand killed in fighting so far'' hardly draws any
attention.
The second lesson is about location. Never fight if you and your
opponent are white, European, and (if Brian Wilson's view is followed,
August 5) you live in a former package-tour destination.
To avoid outside interference you should ensure you are black (or
brown), your fight is in South America, Africa, or Asia, and you and
your opponent cannot be recognised as last year's tourist bus driver or
hotel waiter.
The third lesson relates to timing. Always try to ensure you do your
killing while white people in Europe are slaughtering each other. Too
many wars give the media problems and are boring. Wait till a good one
gets going, then you can continue your killing without hindrance from
journalists, politicians, and even writers of letters to newspapers.
So if today you are in Peru, Kenya, Ethiopia, Georgia, Burma, or many
other places, take advantage of Yugoslavia and get on with that killing.
You are not likely to hear any calls for intervention in your bloody
wars.
J. Riddell,
8 Montgomerie Crescent,
Fairlie.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article