Call me naive and sentimental, but I am worried about the number of young boys dying in my name in foreign lands such as Iraq and Afghanistan. If I was the boss I would bring them all home tomorrow and not send them anywhere until we could be absolutely sure that we are not being lied to about our motives for going to war and that it was absolutely the last possible resort.

In World War 1 the total number of casualties, both military and civilian, were about 37 million: 16 million deaths and 21 million wounded

During the Second World War, approximately 60 million people were killed

In The Vietnam war some 6 million soldiers of all sides were killed including nearly 60,000 American troops. The approximate age of those American troops killed was 23. Today our young men are still dying terrible deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.  I wonder often how many more innocent people have to die in the name of some just cause or other or some religion or another religious disagreement, before we learn that these deaths change nothing in the long term; before we all learn that war is not the answer.

I mean no disrespect to those who are currently fighting or to those who have died in current or past wars. I salute your bravery and your courage and your sacrifice. However, I know many of you have been left wondering what it was all about and why so many had to die.

Why do we go to war? You might say well, because of bad people like Hitler or Saddam Husain or we fight against Global Terrorism, Communism, or whatever is the flavor of the time. And on one level you would be right. We cannot deny that if the Allies had not fought against the Nazis we would all be ruled by Germany now presuming a modern day German empire could have fared any better than a Russian one did.  So what are the bad guys fighting for then, if we are so good and right? Is it just because they are dark and evil and they want to destroy all that is good like some apocalyptic scene from Lord of The Rings led by ‘The Dark Lord’, or do they feel that they have a valid point. Someone once said that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Who decides who the bad guy is anyway? Answer, the winner decides the truth of history. It would be unwise to assume that our hold on being on the side of right is anything but tenuous at best.

So the delusion we have held collectively is as follows: We, ‘the good guys’, are fighting them, ‘the baddies’, because we can’t let those bad guys treat their populous badly like Saddam or we have to crush those bearded devils in that other yonder country where we must obliterate all that is bad, or wherever else we are fighting on the side of right. (Historically we invaded countries and killed the local people and stole their resources because they had a different religion from us or because we wanted to steal the people and use them as slaves).

But hey wait a minute, what about the poor suffering people of Zimbabwe. Don’t they warrant our help over the evil dictator Mugabe – no we say, not our problem mate, South Africa should sort that lot out. Or what about the poor indigenous tribes people of Indonesia who are being systematically murdered and their lands taken to make room for Palm Oil plantations. Well no, we can’t move in their defense because the palm oil is being grown for us. What about Tibet and the oppressive unwarranted brutal Chinese occupation; no again because there’s not much up there for us except mountains and snow and innocent people, hey the Chinese would probably whip our arses anyway. Only pick the fights you know you can win. That is why the Russians and American had a cold war, like two kids in the playground just as afraid as each other: “go on then you go first”, “no you go first you smell anyway”.

It would seem that we pick our fights for reasons other than that which we declare. We, or at least the decision makers have hidden agendas.

Sometimes I wonder whether we will ever cease to be cannon fodder. It has been the case ever since there were rulers and the ruled. Some king or leader decides he is pissed off with some other King or he is running out of riches or just wants some more land so he forces the common people to pay him taxes in order that he can increase his army so he can go to war and knock the shit of some other guys army and civilians alike just  to prove some point or other or grab something for himself – like the other Kings wife say. Both Kings usually survive the battle, surrounded by their generals and the like who also survive - meanwhile the ordinary people get to brutally kill and maim other ordinary people they don’t even know for some reason they are not at all certain about. Oh and they usually chose young people to fight in their army because on the one hand they are younger and healthier and the more of those you have the safer you will be as the king and on the other, younger people are naive and stupid enough to go to war on some John Wayne premise or other that makes no sense to older people.

 We are still sending our children to be killed in Afghanistan and all I heard from the Insane Politician was something like “it is tragic that we have lost another 8 of our soldiers but this is a war we can and must win”.  Now, Apart from any question of validity of such a war, this statement is an example of the Childlike nature of the communication we allow to be fed to us by these ill equipped and poorly educated individuals running or should I say ruining the Country. How many Generals who were not as yet clinically senile would serious advocate a war against an unknown unseen enemy in a country such as Afghanistan with no clear objectives, no clear cohesive military strategy and no idea of how we would know when we had won.

When it comes to the so called war against Terror - how do we know when we have won? What will that look like, who will we have beaten? When I was a wee boy we used to run around the playground playing cowboys and Indians or British Vs the Germans - we knew who the bad guys were; or so we thought. This George Bush fuelled insanity and the foreign policies of the US and UK is really no less simplistic than my schoolboy understanding of international politics. 

Clearly I am not a believer in wars and this insanity in Afghanistan is no easier to fathom than our presence in Iraq . History should inform us of the futility of trying to subdue the Afghans. I’m not sure that anyone in history has either understood the mindset of the Afghan people nor has any invading nation been successful in subduing them. Can somebody please tell me how a handful of British troops and a half a handful of Nato troops is every going to achieve anything at all constructive in this conflict. Why are we there, what are we doing?

I am also decidedly against being ruled or led by individuals with as much self awareness as a bag of chips. Our intrepid leaders are not only disingenuous regarding their motives, they lack imagination, are fueled by some incomprehensible political creed that serves only itself and not the people it was supposed to serve and are governed themselves by Multinational Masters and their own fear and greed for power and position. So I arrive at the only sense I can make of all this - The lunatics have taken over at the asylum. 

What I think we are struggling to understand and acknowledge is our fear of each other and our fear that I will steal your wife and your dinosaur steak or you will steal mine and that we are afraid of not having, of losing and being without. So we grab and hoard, we steal and fill our cupboards with more than we will ever need. We allow our fear to dictate our behavior and we find ourselves with the wanting disease. In short we covet our neighbours ass so we keep on nipping over the fence and stealing it when we feel deprived or wanting. We all do it, both sides do it and I would be hard pushed to decide who is the most culpable, the British are just very polite about it and the Americans are brash and noisy about it because they think its their right to have everything anyway. We just like to think that everyone else is wrong.

Hey, you might say, how does he make this quantum leap from war to fear about steaks?

Our true motives and impulses are often hidden from our own view and we have a tendency to confabulate or rationalize our decisions and behaviors. Don’t underestimate the power behind these violent drives. Why are many men jealous and possessive often to the point of violence and even murder? Precisely because they feel a deep inner feeling of insecurity a terrible fear of losing and an archaic natural distrust of other males. James Millman (Jungian Analyst) said that when men are gathered together violence is never far away. So, in effect, our beating up Saddam is justified on the surface by our horror of his behavior which is really not unlike our own in other circumstances. Driven by our real desire to control the Oil flow to industry and our fat cars and fueled by our masculine fear and our ancient tendency to kill before being killed. It all reminds me of some Global football match where the blues hate the reds because they have different colored shirts and are at different ends of the park – which side you chose is irrelevant and arbitrary. Our fear forces us to take side, to have an us and a them, then to try to kill in others what exists inside ourselves and in our imagination.