Why War was Made for Us or, Warfare came so naturally to us, we just couldn't help it!

20 May 2015

We had to be the first to war in 1914

• We had to maintain the balance of power in our favour in Europe and in the world.
• As the world's biggest empire - lording it over a quarter to one third of the planet, it was our duty to step in and sort out the upstart Germany.
• When we stepped up to the mark, that automatically dragged in the countries of the empire.
• We remain part of today's dominating empire of NATO over Russia.
• We remain punching above our weight.
• We remain the police officer, jury and judge of the world alongside our partner America.
• Britannia continues to rule the waves as our Trident subs triumphantly sail the high seas ready to obliterate much of humanity at the push of a button (or, from a malfunction!).
• Warfare is as natural to us Brits and Americans as water is to fish.
• Yet, we have not been invaded for 1,000 years.
• The last century being the most destructive and ruinous in the history of humanity.

The oh, so righteous of the Lord

The righteous of the Lord have a blind spot or, they slide over the little matter of declining to participate in armed conflicts around the world.  In other words, our aggression on, and domination of, other weak countries that won't hit back never figures in their list of unrighteous deeds.  The righteous of the Lord shun the sex industry but not the arms industry and the armed forces - and all this warfare has been on the other nations' holy soil who simply wanted to be left well alone!  The righteous of the Lord taking part in such unrighteous activities is hypocritical and sinful.

Bible believing believers are reluctant to endorse peace talks between Israel and Palestine.  They say that peace can only come when Jesus returns - and we have all been waiting for that to happen for 2,000 years.  Or, if everyone were to believe on the Lord Jesus and be saved.  A reluctance to enter into peace talks to get a just resolution after 65 years of intermittent killing is boosted by their interpretation of Scripture and simply means continuing injustice and periodic violence.  It invites the charge of complacency and an attitude of care-lessness.

Exactly, as does the oft repeated refrain, from those made right by God and who are now on God's side, that He is in control and we have nothing to fear and nothing to do.  Some of the rest of poor humanity, on the devil's side, insist that Nature is in control and, if we don't get our numbers and our activities in harmony with the powers of the earth to support life, then collapsing life support systems will do the job for us - as we get our inevitable and, rightful, come uppance.  I know which side I charge with being complacent, dangerous and very foolish!

30th Falklands anniversay

Falklands War: A war that Argentina should easily have won had General Galteiri been more ruthless and competent and determined to keep the islands. His exocets might have been used to sink the troop carrying 'Canberra' before our troops disembarked. Our unlawful sinking of the 'Belgrano' led to over 400 sailors drowning and freezing to death. And, then,we rejoiced at our mighty victory and gave thanks to God, in St Paul's Cathedral, for his help! We were actually very, very lucky at having a military government in Argentina that was such an incompetent and corrupt bunch.

Our UK history and politics for centuries has had the Bible at its heart with every Monarch at their Coronation, vowing to abide by its strictures. One such is, "It is more blessed to give than to receive". In fact, like the Falkland Islands, for many centuries we just took and claimed for our own whatever piece of the planet we discovered. And, we fought other European powers over theirs and our territories and dependencies. Most notably, in the 1st World War that was the grand climax of centuries of Western European empire building, piracy and warfare around the globe.

The Christian thing would have been to have admitted we were out-manoeuvred, out-smarted and outplayed in every sphere of intelligence gathering and politics and, so allowed Argentina to keep the islands. Our intelligence services failed to be intelligent and to read the writings in the Argentine newspapers that showed how things were building up to the occupation. The islanders who did not wish to stay could have been re-settled in any part of the UK they wished, such as the islands off Scotland that are similar to the Falklands. Revenge is sweet, however, for every nation and President or Prime Minister. Especially for the Iron Fisted Lady of Downing Street.

Really, I suppose, it was her feelings of outrage that got the better of her. The instinct to hit back overcame the advisers' caution as to what the exocets could do to bring victory to Argentina. Recklessness was the watchword for Mrs Thatcher. She got away with it. She should, but most certainly does not, have on her conscience the deaths of nearly one thousand young people to allow three thousand Falklanders to stay where they should never have been put in the first place.

In early 1982, we let our guard down, withdrew our vessel, had talks at the UN to settle Argentina's claims on the islands and, we failed to read the writing on the wall. Therefore, we were sending a clear message to Galteiri that we would not send a task force to reclaim the islands that natural justice indicates should belong to Argentina - certainly not the UK! Even the US government was, at first, astonished at what Mrs Thatcher decided to do. However, they soon came round to support us against Argentina.

Mrs Thatcher should have done the decent thing and resigned and not sent 908 young men and women, from both nations, to a very early grave. Such is human nature, that Mrs Thatchers poll rating shot up as we Brits honoured a victorious war leader. The following year she was re-elected. Nature, of which we are part is, indeed, red in tooth and claw.

Those in power always use the dishonourable option of coercion, might is right and the sword to get their way - everytime. Things never change, whether we have elected dictatorships or unelected military dictatorships. They are all the same.

Not so funny, not so noble, not so proud!

It is funny how we Brits think of ourselves as being so perfect and everyone else so awful! That might explain your anti-foreigner letters. Let me put the other, rarely heard, side of the story.

For many centuries, the good, clean living Brits have been exploring foreign lands and taking home the booty, eg the piracy of the Elizabethans, Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins. Both men were knighted for their noble efforts and for making their own personal fortune on the backs of the foreigner. Some of their wealth – and ours - came from human trafficking with the iniquitous slave trade. This was a lucrative activity in the organised abuse of black Africans. Our whole nation allowed either one or two million to die or killed them, out of the 12 million carried off as prisoners. It lasted from the 16^th to the 19^th centuries. The foreigner well and truly got it in the neck at the hands of the whites and the church-going, good Christians of the UK.

When the Quakers started pointing out the sheer immorality of this systematic, large-scale abuse of our fellow humans, the Christians and the small minority who were not, argued that the British economy would so seriously suffer that we could not possibly afford to give up enslaving the foreigner!

Eventually, the Church and Parliament abolished the trafficking of Africans but it took another 25 years to end slavery in our glorious and civilising Empire. Much to their credit, the Church of England did acknowledge their major role in slavery, repented and apologised to today's descendants of the slaves.

For many more centuries than the British slave trade lasted, our numerous wars around the world – 7 or 8 against France alone – have killed many more foreigners than British slavery. Certainly, since 1945, 16,000 Brits have died on foreign battlefields but, very many more than 16,000 foreigners have been bumped off by our so beautiful bombs and bullets and righteous rockets. For example, in our war in Vietnam from 1959 to 1975, our good friends and compatriots, the Americans suffered 58,000 deaths in the process of killing an unknown number of Vietnamese whom we labeled as evil, godless Communists. Different encyclopaedias put the figure between 2-4 million. This is genocide of foreigners for which our side is wholly responsible. Both during our war in Korea and during the Cuban missile crisis, the hawks on our side were urging the use of nuclear weapons. Our General Macarthur wanted to nuke a 30 mile wide zone between China and Korea to make it de-militarised (and pulverised and barren!)

The tumultuous end of our Empire in India resulted in the slaughter of over one million Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs and over two million who fled their homes.

Our present major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan always give the fatalities on our side but, rarely, any indication of the casualties amongst Iraqis and Afghans. It appears that their casualties are many times more than ours. But, then of course, the lives of our soldiers are far more valuable, as they have always been, than that of the foreigner.

Having made Iraq and Afghanistan not the most congenial of places in which to live, we then get all hot and bothered when a few of these foreigners finish up our shores. Most of the two millions who have fled are taken in by the rather more welcoming Jordan, Pakistan, Iran and Syria.

Indeed, I think, after centuries of not so noble British history, too many remain as racist, prejudiced and as anti-foreigner as ever. We can war on their shores but we don't like it when these foreigners come to our shores. We can go where we like but they can't come here!

Our enslaving, our imperial ways and our warfare against foreigners is a shocking stain on British history. We remain shameless, unapologetic and unmoved. That is not so funny.