[bisonbison]

William Burroughs states in the book Naked Lunch that the "root of all evil" is total need. He went on to say that heroin junkies are in total need of junk and will do anything to get their hands on it. This seems to make logical sense to me.

Let me just repeat that middle sentence for you:

Heroin junkies are in total need of junk and will do anything to get their hands on it.

This I pretty much agree with. But evil? No. Need is the root of all need.

Surely you can't say evil isn't relevant to all those who died on the field of fire and honor and in concentration camps.

It's not relevant to them now. They're dead. The people that they were will never be again, and can hold no grudge against the living.

We should take peaceful steps to prevent suffering, and in that is encompassed the call to peacably prevent people from hurting each other. But there are better labels than "evil" if you want to convince people.

There are ones that make less of a case for the speaker's superiority.