Every day images of horror and barbaric destruction are splashed across our television screens and unless we are stone-hearted, we cannot remain insensitive to such massacres. Beirut, once a booming city, is mercilessly razed to the ground with the intensive bombardments. How can thousands of civilians be butchered or buried alive under the debris of skyscrapers? The gates of Hell have been flung open and Doomsday is at hand.

Both sides are armed to the teeth and locked into rigid positions. It is most revolting and painful to think of the gruesome misery, pain and woe that the war in Lebanon can entail. Humanity has too soon forgotten the Vietnam war and the Balkan conflict. How can international peace lie in the hands of a few political leaders? It takes as little as one false decision of an unscrupulous or whimsical politician to endanger the lives of millions and to ignite the powder-keg and set the whole region in deflagration.

The irony of history is that the Middle East is the cradle of three great world religions (Islam, Judaism and Christianity) and yet it is the region where several wars are being waged, imperiling world peace and disrupting the global economy. Paradoxically the UN seems to be impotent in the Lebanese conflict to put an end to the crisis and belligerent countries (direct or indirect) surely have a hidden agenda. A diplomatic stalemate is the result.

War sacrifices innocent human lives. What we are witnessing in Lebanon is the cold-blooded murder of innumerable innocent civilians. The refugees have lost everything and for them it is from riches to rags. The flow of refugees is a heart-rending scene, the civilians are embarking on the road to an unknown destiny starting from scratch. Natural resources and manpower that could have been devoted to more worthwhile projects or served to better the lives of human beings are instead squandered in the battlefield. The days of Attila, Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great are gone; more sophisticated weapons are now devised to annihilate the enemy. The napalm bomb is too mild today and they even talk of chemical or bacteriological warfare. Might is right.

<B>Philip LI CHING HUM</B>