Tuesday 13 December 2016

War is Hell?

What did you do in the war, daddy? Not everybody had a terrible war and many of those who fought found in themselves something they never knew they had. Of course war is terrible, terror defines it, but it’s also inevitable. If only somebody could come up with a doctrine with which we could all agree. I dunno, a parable, a fable, a gospel, a message of hope and love and peace for all mankind. Religion has tried it – and killed millions. Politics has tried it – and killed millions. So far, practising, as opposed to executing, the art of war and thus deterring aggression, has saved millions more than politics or religion could ever claim.

Civilian leaders talk of unity and condemn ‘divisive’ thought and action, yet politics has grouped people along very clearly divided battle lines and religions have shown that the love of one god before another has division written all over it. Multiculturalism only exacerbates those divisions – we could get along when the principle difference was a metre or so to the left or right of our ideological divide but the complexity of increasing differentness makes it ever more tricky working out which, or whose, side you are on. But one thing has historically united more than it has ever split apart – love of country and pride in its defence.

I read an article the other day, in support of the European Union and how it was the only thing preventing war in Europe; how generals in comfy armchairs back in HQ sent brave boys over the top to die and how this would only begin all over again if the EU split. But now disorder and unrest are being fomented by the actions of armchair generals in Brussels, making unaccountable decisions and putting us all into battle against ourselves. This isn’t any ‘rise of the right’ or petty racism from unintelligent lumpen proles; the divisions are being stoked by the very agencies that claim to prevent them. We may need another big war just to clear the air.

And when that day comes – many feel it is already coming – the only thing that will save any nation is a strong sense of unity and national pride. After all, how can we expect the flakes and freaks of the alternative societies to unite and bear arms against a common enemy when they can’t even identify a common purpose amongst themselves? When the time comes it won’t be the architects and disciples of the new Europe who will defend us, it will be the same working class boys currently being denigrated for their ‘divisive’ views that belonging to a community with a strong national identity is not wrong.

They don't like it up 'em!

Over the top? Yes, over the top one more time to defend the indefensible against the harm they have invited upon us all. The working classes don’t go to war for ideology; they go to war because somebody has to do something to end the strife caused – always – by others. The chattering gob-shites might be grateful for a while, as they cower in their comfy bunkers, electronically group-hugging each other on social media, but once the peace is secured, sure as eggs they will set about dismantling it again. 

1 comment:

  1. Kipling wrote a poem about it.
    http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_tommy.htm

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