In de hitte van de strijd

Gletsjers op het West-Chinese Qinghai-Tibet plateau, smelten in een tempo van zeven procent per jaar.

En: De taliban hebben zich de afgelopen maanden in het zuiden van Afghanistan versterkt.

Wat dit in vredesnaam met elkaar te maken heeft? Ik moest aan dit soort berichten denken, toen ik vanaochtend deze passage las uit Kurt Vonneguts Slaughterhouse 5 uit 1969:

Over the years people I’ve met have often asked me what I’m working on, and I’ve usually replied that the main thing was a book about Dresden.
I said that to Harrison Starr, the movie-maker, one time, and he raised his eyebrows and inquired, “Is it an anti-war book?”
“Yes,” I said, “I guess.”
“You know what I say to people when I hear they’re writing anti-war books?”
“No. What do you say, Harrison Starr?”
“I say, ‘Why don’t you write an anti-glacier book instead?’”
What he meant of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too.