Evening star., 1944-02-11
In q Sense, MercifuI


sometimes exalts the human spirit
and inspires individuals to rise above
themselves in acts of shining hero
ism and sacrifice, war brings out the
finest and noblest traits of man. But
taken all in all, it is a terror that
goes on from day to day in kind
OF apocalyptic monotony of dirt and
death and the weeping OF women.
AS such. especially in so total a
struggle as this. it is thing in
which the central reality is the hard
and ugly one of either killing or
getting killed-a reality applying
not only to the battle fronts and the
home fronts but to the clashing
PHILOSOPHERS of life as we'll.
This much Hitler and the Japa-
nese have made clear. Time and
again they have said that either we
go down or they 60 down. that our
society, our manner of doing, things,
our political and economic systems,
cannot exist in the same world with
theirs, and that there is no way of
compromising the issue. And that
is true; there is no way of compro-
missing 1t. no way of settling it,
except by the sword For to tempor-
lze here, to be less than thorough in
pressing the advantage our Allied
side now holds after having been
almost annihilated, would merely be
to give quarter to enemies who
regard this as no-quarter war. 1t
would be merely to give those enc
mics chance to catch their breaths
and refresh themselves for a re-
newed assault on the civilization
which we hold dear and which they
have sought to destroy. That is why
we must pursue them relentlessly
until they have met their finish;
that is why we must make very sure,
when we have at last put them
down, that they have been put down
to stay, so that neither they nor
their kind will be able to rise again
in a generation or SOTO blacken
history and afflict humanity with
mass death and enslavement.
If for no other reason than this,
it is necessary to reject as unsound
and self-defeating the idea just
voiced by the former Archbishop of
Canterbury in the British House of
Lords. that our Allied air offensive
against Nazi Germany-the heart of
Hitler's power-is unjustifed. AS
the retired head Of the Church of
England, Lord Lang apparently
feels that such warfare. which was
begun by Hitler against defenseless
places like Warsaw and Rotterdam
and by the japanese against places
like Nanking. is unchristian and
should be stopped. Yet if it were
stopped at this stage, not only would
the evil of the war itself be pro-
longed but the Wotan-worshippers,
the nihilists, the followers of the
Sun Goddess, the believers in the
principle that might alone makes
right, would have the opportunity to
build up their strength once more
against the very Christianity about
Which Lord Lang is so understand
ably concerned.
But over and above this, over and
above the moral issue involved, over
and above the fact that the good
forces of mankind must strike their
sword remorselessly against evil (as
Michael did against the prideful
Lucifer), this war is a thing that
cannot be allowed to drag on in
definitely. The oppressed peoples of
Europe and Asia cry out for as swift
an end to it as possible. And the
young men in our Allied armies, now
poised to open new fronts, every
where, are entitled to have the sup
port not Of less British and Ameri-
can bombing, but of more. and ever
more. Seen in this light, what Lord
Lang deplores as bloodthirsty is far
from being that. For to the extent
that it will shorten the worlds pres
ent torment with a minimum ex-
penditure of life, this concentrated
violence against the enemy's heart
is not merely militarily wise but. in
a sense, even merciful.