MY childhood was spent in the dark shadows of world war. After '45 there was the briefest of respites before wars resumed in Greece, Korea, Indo China, the Middle East, Latin America, the Caribbean, Laos, Cambodia, the Falklands, Afghanistan, the lands of what was Yugoslavia, and others I can't recall at the moment. At no time has the world been at peace during these years. Millions of land mines litter the earth's soil. They blow off the legs of Third World children. Princess Diana's one real claim to fame was that she highlighted this obscenity. The land mines were made in developed countries. More high explosives were dropped on Vietnam than in the 1939-45 war. The United States was mostly unconcerned when the casualties were almost exclusively Vietnamese. Yet when the pine boxes containing dead young Americans started arriving regularly on American soil, the peace movement became a

mass movement.

All wars since 1945 have taken place in the lands of the Third World. These were the new killing fields. The superpowers used them as jousting grounds, test beds for their new weapons of destruction. Also at stake were rich mineral resources to be exploited, spheres of influence, and geopolitical power. This was the era of the Cold War, but it was killingly hot for the Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Palestinians. Implicit was an exchange rate for lives. One white North American or West European equals 100 Mexicans, 200 Arabs (400 if the Arabs are Muslims), 1000 Bangladeshis, 2000 Ethiopians, etc.

The same applies to natural disasters, only more so. With modern technology we can sit at home munching pizzas, watching, via satellite television, famines kill millions on the other side of the globe. Or we can switch to another channel, without leaving the chair, and watch the Teletubbies. Decisions, decisions. Of course it's history and culture. We Wasps have to stick together, including Catholic and Jewish Wasps. And equally, of course, we are anti-racist. We espouse liberal democratic values, the Enlightenment and all that jazz. We could cry for the people of the Third World but we've run out of tears for the black bastards.

I think the West, in the midst of the biggest accumulation of material wealth in the history of humankind, is a moral desert. It's hung up on sex, which should be of no interest to anyone except those doing it. Its leaders are obsessed with mammon; they are the people Willie McIlvanney calls the non-dialectical materialists. They are developing a war technology that kills people and peoples without any possibility of retaliation, at least that's the theory. The President of the US only has to give his generals the nod and rockets rain down while he gets back on his helicopter to resume his holidays in Martha's Vineyard. Listen, I don't care what he does with his semen, it's what he does with his rockets that worries me.

During the Cold War we had MAD, or mutually assured destruction. The two superpowers more or less nullified each other. Since the USSR imploded we have only one superpower. It has no such restraints on its actions or behaviour. President Clinton ordered the destruction by rockets of a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. He claimed it was producing war gases. Citizens of Britain who were involved in the design and construction of the factory say its structure precludes such activity. British businessmen who were in the factory in recent weeks say it was producing only pharmaceutical goods. Structural experts have told us the factory was too open to have permitted the production of such gases. The Observer had a front-page lead last Sunday, which claimed that American Intelligence had told the President that there was no hard evidence to prove that the factory was producing

nerve gases. He none the less destroyed it.

Now it could be that this raid

had more to do with what the President did or did not do, or

where he did or did not do it, with Monica Lewinsky, than the pursuit of terrorism.

It would be funny if it wasn't so serious. The territorial integrity of a sovereign state, no matter what we think of the current regime in that country, has been seriously violated. If this is acceptable then the nations of this world will be riven by wars, holy or unholy. The United Nations can pack it in, for it will have no role to play. We will have a New World Order where only might is right. That is why the United Nations must assert its authority or it will have none. The burden of proof as to whether this factory was producing war gases rests with the United States. If it fails to produce such proof, the United Nations has to carry out its own scientific investigation. If this factory was only producing medicines then the American government has to be condemned by the world community. The alternative is to go back to the thirties with the rockets instead of panzers and, lurking constantly

in the background, the use of nuclear weapons by the desperate who feel they have nothing else to lose.

The language of US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has been particularly frightening. She talks of the next war, ''the war against Muslim terrorism''. Her talk and Clinton's actions are the best recruiting sergeants Islamic fundamentalism has ever had. The great majority of the one billion Muslims in the world today are not fundamentalists or terrorists but poor, hard working men and women, and their families. They are aggrieved at what they see as the West's double standards in the Middle East. The UN resolution that recognises the State of Israel within its prescribed borders, as well as the territorial rights to a homeland for the Palestinians, has been ignored for decades.

They have seen the oil riches of Arabia squandered by feudal kings maintained in power by the West for being ''reliable'' allies. Young Palestinians born and bred as stateless persons in refugee camps are understandably attracted to extremist groups. The United States hasn't lifted a finger to help them, but is quick to crush them if they get out of order. There will be no peace in the Middle East until the problem of Palestinian nationhood is resolved. The real interests of Israel will be best served by such a solution. Netanyahu wants no deal. He speaks for Israeli chauvinism.

It should be remembered that William Wallace was called a terrorist by the English. Nelson Mandela was called a terrorist by the white supremacists in South Africa. The founders of the State of Israel were called terrorists by the British Government, as were the founders of the United States. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Terrorism can best be tackled by seeking a political settlement that is fair; force, if used at all, should be to that end. That is what is now happening in Northern Ireland. The Middle East is no different.

Finally, I don't know about

you, dear reader, but I'm mightily pissed off with British governments that rush to support any and every military action by the United States. Some day it might cost us dearly. That apart, it's undignified.