Terror: Why not nail all the perpetrators?

The despots of Libya, Yemen and Syria deserve to be incarcerated for life as punishment for their ferocious, cowardly and murderous treatment of the people they rule.

The former leaders of the US, Britain and Australia and those of the countries that supported them in their ferocious, cowardly and murderous treatment of the people of Afghanistan and Iraq (whom they did not rule) deserve the same treatment.

Every American, British and Australian soldier who died in Iraq and Afghanistan was a victim not of Iraqis and Afghans who chose to defend their invaded countries but of their own megalomaniacal political leaders (especially the head loony, George W. Bush). And each allied soldier, irrespective of his/her battlefield courage, has died in vain.

Still today, when listening to the political leaders of the US, Britain and Australia, it seems little has changed in the psyche of the ruling classes of their countries — except that their cowardice is starting to outweigh their lust for neo-colonial hegemony over Third World peoples. Well, for the time being, anyway. Not one of them seems to remember Vietnam.

Now, having discovered that oppressing militarily puny Third World countries is not a cakewalk, they find themselves forced, reluctantly, to having to hint at the prospect of getting out. Even First World tyrants tire of the killing and of leaving their victims’ nations in tatters.

It is to be hoped that, once they have apologised to — and (should their victims be so magnanimous) made their peace with — the innocent Iraqis and Afghans whose lives have been shattered, the US, Britain, Australia and their partners in crime will pick up the reconstruction tabs.