4.09.2003
Day 21 since the bombing of Iraq has begun and we don't know whether Saddam Hussein is dead or alive yet. But do we care and should we care? I saw the headlines on the Evening Standard stands around London - "4 bombs in residential Baghdad" - and felt sick. But I understand - this is a terrible result of war.
All wars leave victims on both sides. This one will not the last war to be fought, either. So what should happen afterwards?
Gunter Grass's latest book, 'Crabwalk' discusses the aftermath of war in the context of the Second World War. But he is very much writing from the standpoint of the present. He suggests a new way of dealing with the conflict that seems to be engulfing the world - the ideological/religious conflict - by way of implementing 'a gigantic Marshall Plan' as he calls it. Maybe this is not the right way of going about it, but what is certain is that we need to think about what is going to work.