What Will You Do in the Great War?

“Come you masters of war, You that build the big guns… Like Judas of old, You lie and deceive”

Bob Dylan

Hermann Goering reputedly said, “Naturally, the common people don’t want war; […but] it is always a simple matter to drag the people along.” I’m not so sure, any more, about the first premise, but his conclusion is being demonstrated, day by day.

Because the beating of the War Machine is pounding louder and louder by the day. More and more people are taking up the cudgels and joining in the hooting chorus of propaganda.

Slowly and steadily, we are being prepped to go to war.

The most popular comparison for the current crisis is “1939!” — only because that’s the only date in modern history that this generation of ignoramuses has ever learned. (The annexation of the Sudetenland, which some of them dimly manage to also regurgitate, took place in 1938.)

But this seems less like 1938 to me than 1914.

The propaganda is reaching the same hysterical levels as when the “vile Hun” “raped” “poor little Belgium”. Everything vaguely Russian is being demonised and cast into the outer darkness. Suddenly, everyone’s dropping the Russicised “Kiev” and “Kharkov” for the linguistic virtue-signalling of “Kyiv” and “Kharkiv” (places, incidentally, almost all of them would have either never heard of until last week, or only associated with crumbed chicken breasts). Place names and surnames were also hurriedly de-Germanised during WWI (“Germantown”, in my home town, was renamed to the bland “Grovedale”, the Royal Family dropped “Saxe-Coburg and Gotha” and rebranded themselves).

In America, sauerkraut became the ludicrous “Liberty Lettuce”, itself reminiscent of the pique that led to “Freedom Fries”, in the 1990s. Now, we’re seeing big liquor chains removing Russian vodka from their shelves. No doubt a mass burning will follow soon.

The media are also playing up any anti-Russian angle they can. The tabloid media could scarce contain their glee in reporting that a Ukrainian crewman had sunk his Russian boss’ luxury yacht and run off to join the war. Social media commentary cheered it on and only expressed regret that the Russian didn’t drown with it. Of course, the Russian in question was a weapons dealer, so it is a little hard to dredge any sympathy — but how long before howling mobs are attacking anything and anyone vaguely “Russkie-sounding”?

But the gold medal for jingoistic hypocrisy must surely go to the International Olympic Committee. The IOC has called for Russian and Belarusian athletes to be banned from international events. This is the same organisation, remember, which just gave the Games to communist China for the second time, as well as previously allowing games to be hosted by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.

So, where does this all end? That should be obvious by now — war. A war which more people seem to be ominously cheering on with almost the gusto of 1914. Maybe they think it’ll be over by Christmas.

None of this, of course, is to excuse Putin’s aggression. Putin must wear the responsibility for launching the war. But the Kaiser was also responsible for launching the war in 1914. That didn’t mean that the other powers weren’t as eager to jump into the fray. Nor that they didn’t bear any guilt for fostering the feverish atmosphere that made a war so grimly inevitable. In the same way, NATO must bear some responsibility for piling the pressure against Russia’s borders to the point that Putin happily rose to the bait.

You would think we’d have learned, by now. We literally just slunk away, humiliated and defeated, from twenty years of foreign wars. Foreign wars in which our side were the aggressors.

Now, we’ve got G. W. Bush, of all people, ranting about Russia’s “unjustified invasion”. Really? Really? Next, we’ll have Tony Blair, lecturing us how Putin has used lies and propaganda to justify an unjustifiable war. Which he has, but… the beam in our own eyes.

So, is this the start of World War Three? A week ago I laughed at the prospect. Now, I still think it’s almost certainly not, but my scepticism is wavering. Because it seems that far too many people are being hypnotised by the drumbeat of the War Machine. Rasmussen reports a slim majority of Americans are already in favour of going to war with Russia.

A great many people really need to cool their jets, take a deep breath and count to ten, and stop allowing themselves to be led like sheep by the Masters of War.

Before we all become lambs to the slaughter.