David Craig, on February 1st, 2024Thursday-Friday blog
I ain’t no historian. And I’m hardly likely to provide some devastating new historical insights in a 900-word blog hastily-written at 06.00 in the morning. But the recent nonsense discussion in the media about whether today’s Brits would fight to defend our country did get me wondering about who really started the many wars in which Brits have lost their lives.
But firstly, the question ‘should Brits fight to defend their country? Why bother? All our institutions have already fallen to those wonderful people from our favourite religion. Over a million foreigners were allowed to invade our country just last year. And by the end of this century, the UK will have become an Islamic republic. Who would risk their lives to defend that?
War – a brief review
World War I – the ostensible reason for the UK entering the war was to protect Belgium as a neutral country. Of course, that was nonsense. Who actually gave a stuff about miserable backwater Belgium? The real reason was that Britain knew the French would capitulate as soon as the Germans started shooting. This would hand control of Western Europe to Germany. Moreover, there were also Westminster political machinations. The Liberal cabinet made the decision, although the party had been strongly anti-war until the last minute. The Conservative Party was pro-war. The Liberals knew that if they split on the war issue, they would lose control of the government to the Conservatives:
World War II – from the little I understand, after WWI the British and Americans wanted to impose fairly lenient terms on Germany. But the French were adamant that Germany should be punished harshly. The final terms were so draconian that French Field Marshall Foch warned “This is not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years”. It turns out that he was only out by a few months. The reparations Germany had to pay led to the collapse of the currency, economic turmoil, mass unemployment and the rise of the Nazis seeking revenge for the humiliation of 1918.
The Pearl Harbour attack – after the Japanese attack US president Franklin Roosevelt (possibly rather disingenuously?) said: Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” Japan had been industrialising in the 1920s, but lacked access to the raw materials its industry needed. So Japan invaded Manchuria and China slaughtering 20 or 30 million innocents in rather unpleasant ways. The US under Roosevelt started imposing sanctions on Japan blocking Japan’s access to things like steel and oil and even gave an ultimatum to Japan to get out of China. A top American official at the time stated: “Prior to December 7, it was evident even to me… that we were pushing Japan into a corner. I believed that it was the desire of President Roosevelt, and Prime Minister Churchill that we get into the war, as they felt the Allies could not win without us and all our efforts to cause the Germans to declare war on us failed; the conditions we imposed upon Japan—to get out of China, for example—were so severe that we knew that nation could not accept them. We were forcing her so severely that we could have known that she would react toward the United States. All her preparations in a military way — and we knew their over-all import — pointed that way.”
The Suez Crisis – was an international crisis in the Middle East that was precipitated on July 26, 1956, when the Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, nationalized the Suez Canal. The canal was owned by the Suez Canal Company, which was controlled by French and British interests. So this little war was aimed at protecting British and French businesses. Not a very admirable aim and perhaps not worth the lives of British soldiers to protect a few influential businessmen’s profits?
The Vietnam war – Vietnam was a French colony. As usual, when the guns started firing, the French ran away. For the U.S., the mandate was clear: limit Soviet power in Southeast Asia and halt the spread of communism. The first American death was in 1945. Direct U.S. involvement in Vietnam grew following surrender of the French and partition of North and South Vietnam in 1954. I suspect that, had the Americans actually won in Vietnam, the French would have come marching back in ‘bravely’ waving their tricolours (just as they ‘bravely’ marched into Paris in 1944 after the Americans and British had liberated the city) and demanded their colony back. The French rather like other people fighting their wars.
The invasion of Iraq – we now know that there were no weapons of mass destruction which could be ‘launched in 45 minutes’ and the war was probably to get control of Iraq’s oil
The Russia/Ukraine war – I have written about this before. To summarise, Putin had warned NATO several times to halt its Eastern expansion. Just before the Russian invasion, NATO announced that it would consider admitting Ukraine and Georgia. This would bring NATO bases right to Russia’s borders. Putin demanded that NATO back down, but the US delivered a diplomatic note to the Kremlin asserting NATO’s right to admit any country it wished. So Russia invaded Ukraine expecting to reach Kiev in a few days, overthrow the pro-western Zelensky government and install a Russian puppet administration. Unfortunately the Russians miscalculated and 500,000 deaths later we have a stalemate. Though, as the Russians can out-produce Ukraine in terms of military equipment and manpower, the odds are moving in Russia’s favour.
There are a few more wars we could add where the motivations of Western countries were far from morally justifiable. There’s the 1953 overthrow of the democratically-elected Iranian Mossadegh government and their replacement with the Western-friendly Shah and there’s the overthrow of Libya’s Gaddafi just to name a couple.
I guess what I’m trying to suggest is that the reasons we have become involved in several wars are not alway as clear-cut as many people are led to believe and are not always about Good versus Evil, with Britain always being on the side of Good.
To end, here’s what Hermann Goering said at his trial in Nuremberg: “Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”
And here’s Putin explaining that he would not accept NATO bases on Russia’s borders just as the US would not accept Russian military bases on the US’s southern border with Mexico. Sounds pretty reasonable to me:
Category: 
And yet the US/UK/NATO neocons play their stupid wargames, while a real one is going on in the Ukraine (hoping for a false flag perhaps). How could the Russians see this as anything other than a threat?
We live in ‘interesting’ (and dangerous) times
“NATO’s Steadfast Defender 2024 war games that kicked off in Europe last week present a threat to Russia’s national security”
“The exercises, hailed to be the largest NATO has held in decades.. will last for several months”
“some 1,100 combat vehicles, including 133 tanks and 533 infantry fighting vehicles, as well as over 50 naval vessels and 80 helicopters, drones and fighter jets are set to take part in the exercises.”
“Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov pointed out that NATO has always been intended as a “instrument of confrontation” that is controlled by Washington.”
https://www.rt.com/russia/591613-nato-wargames-russia-threat/
Who started the wars is a good question, plus why were they started and who pays for them. Perhaps the most important question is whether there are any winners. The question that is easy to answer is who benefits and that is now the bankers.
It hasn’t always been the bankers. Before the creation of standing armies the king apparently paid men to fight. In 1066 King Harold believed that William would not cross the Channel and disbanded his army because the didn’t want to pay men for doing nothing. He then had to rapidly get them back when William came across.
I’m too lazy to check the facts, but around the time of the black death there was a war and the English king borrowed money from the Florentine bankers and could not pay the loan. This had an impact on all the European banks, creating an economic crisis and resulted in the dark ages. Now of course the bankers have solved the problem with the creation of the central banks that just turn on the printing presses to pay for wars and that also encourages the politicians to get involved. Look at the money and weapons given to Ukraine and many of the weapons seem to be on the black market and finding their way to the middle east. Sunak should focus on the Channel, not Ukraine.
I find WWI complex to work out. You mention Belgium and there was a USA scheme to provide them with food. There was a blockade preventing food getting there, but the real purpose of the scheme to supply Belgium was apparently to get it into Germany because without food the war would have ended and nobody wanted that. WWI seem relevant to the point you raise about whether young men would volunteer to fight today. In the case of WWI it was government propaganda that encouraged men to go to war. They were made to believe that the Germans could easily be defeated. The suffragettes were apparently paid by the government to encourage young men to go to war in return for their members being released from jail. This resulted in white feathers being handed out to young men who they classed as cowards. We have never been told what the women thought when their men did not return or ended up trodden into the mud never to be found.
It is difficult to understand the terms of the Versailles treaty. I suspect part of it was that the Kaiser was weak. There is no doubt in my mind that these terms created Hitler. But the question I have is why did Britain and France declare war on Germany. It was apparently because of a very vague agreement to keep Poland independent. When Hitler invaded we declared war on Germany. But when the USSR invaded Poland soon after we did not declare war on them? Why not? After the war we were told it was to stop the Nazis occupying Europe, but the result was probably worse and the Communists occupied Eastern Europe. Stalin won the war. Churchill and Roosevelt seemed powerless as a result.
There is a documentary about Pearl Harbour on PSB America confirming that the American government knew about the Japanese plan to attack Pearl Harbour and allowed it to happen. It stopped at saying that Roosevelt knew about it. Roosevelt wanted the USA in the war but the American people sensibly did not. This changed everything and started the USA dominance of the world and the endless wars ever since.
At least Wilson had the sense to keep us out of the Vietnam war. The intelligence “failure” over Iraq is astonishing. At the time it seemed clear that Saddam did not have the missiles to deliver chemical weapons, if he had them. I have also read that Bin Laden was a CIA asset. America has a lot of questions to answer and so do we as their main supporter.
How long before quoting Goring becomes a crime? I have just started reading Gunther Anders and he pointed out that the Nazi propaganda was through mass meetings and violence and now propaganda is continually fed into our homes through TV. Perhaps the quote we should be thinking of is Kennedy talking about peace but not just in our time, but peace for all time. He was assassinated for that so we know wars are here to stay.
The old wars happened in a time when information was limited. Access to information was state controlled and nobody really understood the way the media colludes with the state to mislead the citizens. If a war mongering alcoholic like Churchill is appointed and passes laws to subscript your kids what were your options? Unless like Bush and other wealthy families you had the money to jump through the loopholes.
The modern world has access to unlimited information. The state is desperate to reverse this as their ability to control is zero when the lies they want to tell are immediately debunked by experts who the legacy media could have easily excluded in the past.
But the state is living in the past it is an analogue creation in a digital world. We dont need this form of government any longer as they are corrupt and out of touch. Lets face it with a Swiss style direct democracy we wont be going to war anytime soon unless we really have to defend our land from invasion. But from where im sitting the only invaders are us and i refuse to condone our governments poor behaviour.
Those of us that are paying attention, admittedly based on the information we have from various online sources, (not from the msn) are aware that Putin has been backed into a corner over the course of the last 10- 15 years. The West has used Ukraine as a proxy to try to damage Putins regime by stoking the divisions in Ukraine and pushing east with Nato. The msn comes out with language like illegal invasion of Crimea without any background to that part of the world. For instance that fact that it should never have been in Ukraine’s possession but for Khrushchev or that the vast majority of Crimeans identify as Russian.
I am disappointed at the calibre of political leader we now have to endure both here and across the West.
Nice to see you having articles up on TWC.