Our current president insists that the ‘raison d’etre’ for making war against Iraq is because “illicit” arms were being hidden from inspectors and “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq were proof that Iraq was part of the terrorist worldwide conspiracy.  These have often been advanced as solidly good reasons to go into this war.  The facts seem to prove otherwise.

In war situations, mass graves are post facto proof that killing and preventative attacks are the substance of warlike activity.  In the US/Iraq conflict, there were a lot of guns, explosives and weapons of un-mass destruction used – mainly by the U.S.  This situation is a lot like licit and illicit drugs.

Licit drugs like licit arms are simply those that have been declared lawful.  It is hard to mouth these words because there are no “lawful arms”.  The only arms that are “lawful” are those attached to the body.  All others, in the form of weapons, seem to me to be against nature and against civilization.  Animals come equipped with fangs, claws and un-human muscles.  We humans come equipped with puny nails and modest teeth, neither of which are great weapons.  We depend on our brains to think of weapons made of stone, wood, and metal and explosives right up to the radiation producing nuclear fission and fusion devices.  All of these should be declared by thinking civilized peoples of the world as ILLICIT. They are destructive to human life and the life of other organisms that share this world with us.

The distinction between legal and illegal is a matter of power at particular times.  The Catholic Church at one time in the Middle Ages tried to act as a mediator in the conflicts between knights on horseback whaling away at each other with swords, shields and lances.  Rules of conduct made them into tests of strength between individuals. Some groups of knights directed their varlets, churls and peasants in great numbers against others. Rules that tried to soften the trial of strength leading to death went right out the window.

Feudal times did not mean a time of feuds although it sometimes looked like it.  Feuds sometimes have resulted in duels that needed a winner to determine who had God on his side or who was to win the beauty or take over a disputed castle.  We have rules of war but the one rule that should be adopted and that speedily so, is that all arms are illicit if used to kill someone – this is particularly needed in civil discourse where people on the streets carry weapons of destruction.

We need to make all weapons illicit.  Maybe that will make war go away.