I was checking up on the battle of Passchendaele today. 1917, the First World War. Taken from Wikipedia (not always a good source of information, but this comment if anything understates the actual situation):
"After 16 weeks of bitter fighting in appalling conditions of rain, mud and slime, about one-sixth of the initial objective had been gained at a cost of nearly 400,000 British casualties (17,000 officers), leveling the entire town. Nearly 400,000 German soldiers gave their lives defending it".
800,000 casualties for what? Look at those numbers. For one moment think about the suffering ON BOTH SIDES? And for what?
War is so glorious (in appalling conditions of rain, mud and slime - see again), thousands died or were maimed, and for what end?
Erich Maria Remarque in his brilliant pacifist novel "Im Westen Nichts Neues" ("All Quiet on the Western Front" in English) debunks the glories of war and all the propaganda that accompanies it.
In my view the propaganda on both sides in the First World War was equally bad, the war was kept going because compromise was simply "not acceptable", and you couldn't let the other side seem to win. Both sides needed their proverbial heads banging together, and the whole thing stopping as early as 1915. Of course we cannot change history.
There are times when war is unfortunately necessary. Fascists of various description (Hitler, bin Laden, Milosevic and the like) have to be stopped. If they start something (as all of them did) they have to be resisted.
But let us not consider that war is in any way glorious. Much of it is dirty, disgusting and given to moments of inhumanity that would leave any of us totally and completely cold. And threatening to start something on the pre-emptive basis is as phoney a concept as there is out there. Often the basis is simply political anyway, and often is the result of phoney propaganda for which facts are evident by their absence (see Iraq now, and Iran in the next couple of years).
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