THE RECORD
September 26, 2001

Fiat Lux

by Ed Deak

Even after almost 60 years of historical studies I am still amazed of the stupidity of world and national leaders and the lemming like gullibility of public who always followed them to their own doom through the ages.

As I mentioned in my previous columns, I am Hungarian born. When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 I was a 14 year old schoolboy. Going to church on Sundays was compulsory. We had to gather in our schoolyard and from there we marched in columns to mass. It was a beautiful morning when some of the boys who heard the news on the radio told the rest of us about the invasion of Russia. We all knew that we'd also be involved very soon. Having been brainwashed with tales of the glory of war we thought it was a great thing and hoped that it wouldn't end before we also got into it. Well, many of us got our wish and many never lived to tell the tales about it.

As the good satellites of the Glorious Thousand Year German Empire our Hungarian leaders were itching to get into the fight. In those days colonization was still accomplished with the force of arms and not by freshly made worthless monetary capital, as it is done today. Our government needed some kind of an excuse, or provocation to attack Russia, so they could call our entry into the war a form of retaliation. The usual "avenging our sacred dead" propaganda used by every two bit dictator to hype up public support for war since the beginning of history.

A few days after the invasion German planes with German markings bombed some North Hungarian towns, now in Slovakia, killing a number of people. The official line was that they were Soviet planes, disguised as Germans and that we must retaliate against such cowardly attack. The usual story of when somebody attacks us it is always a cowardly act, but when we attack others it is called heroism. Nobody mentioned that the Russians were getting beat up, in full retreat and the last thing they needed was another enemy. So, off we went to war with the waving of flags and the usual blessings of God to erase the shame of communism from the face of the Earth.

Four years later Hungary was in ruins, robbed and burned by both sides. Half million dead, millions of women raped by the Russians, masses of innocent people deported to the Gulags, hundreds of thousands of refugees all over Europe. At eighteen I was a wounded war veteran, prisoner of war twice, first of the Germans, then of the Americans. Sentenced to death by the Nazis, my mother gang-raped, my grandparents dead from the effects of starvation, homeless in a strange country without any hope or future.

Recently my wife and I were glued to the TV for about 6 hours, watching the horror enfolding of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. We both experienced the effects and consequences of bombings many times in our young lives it all came back to us. Especially when we saw those huge towers folding up like card castles, knowing of the thousands of people trapped and dying in them, the spouses and children who will never see their loved ones again.

Unfortunately, our foremost concern was and still is that this could only be the beginning of one of the most horrible times of human history. If our politicians think that they can send bombers and armies to smoke out terrorist hideouts, they are very naive. Terror begets terror and the more terrorists they kill the more will take their places. There are billions of people in the world who have nothing to lose and the only thing they own is their burning hate against us, the so called "wealthy countries."

How successful have past campaigns against terrorist been? The bombings and shooting in Ireland have been going on for decades and no government, or military action could stop them. There are ongoing civil and ethnic wars all over the world, in Israel, in Sri Lanka, in Indonesia, in the Philippines, in several South American and African countries, in Chechnya and nobody could stop them any more than win the war against drugs.

The USA and the USSR, the two mightiest military powers of their time have both received beatings in the hands of raggedy rebels in Vietnam and Afghanistan. The USA should also remember that it was their CIA that armed and trained the Afghans, including their now top scapegoat Bin Laden. They should also remember the billions of dollars worth of arms and the 1000 surface to air missiles they gave to the Afghans to shoot down some 270 Soviet aircraft. Most of these missiles have never been used, or recovered.
The purpose of economic competition is to knock down, expropriate and deprive others of their properties and lives. The purpose of globalization is the colonization of the Earth under a few super powers. While our politicians talk a lot about the benefits globalization, they have no evidence to support their claims. The unfortunate evidence to the contrary are the thousands of bodies still buried under the rubble of the World Trade towers and the 40,000 children who starve to death every day as the result of economic theories that cause far more damage than the bombs of terrorists.

Copyright (c) 2001, West's International