The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori

Whenever I hear Bush and his ilk spouting their warmongering hate through the airwaves, I am reminded of this poem written during the first world war.

Dulce et Decorum est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped5 Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! � An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfrid Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918

Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country.

That is what the politicians want people to believe. Not the fact that they are fighting and dying for the profits of the rich. War is not glorious, it is hell and pain and death and the sooner the human race realises that, the better.

I am not saying that we should not defend ourselves, but that we should choose our battles. Iraq is Bush's war, not ours, not the people of America and Britain. But is our people who are dying. I don't see any of Bush's family fighting there. Nor Blair's. Iraq was nothing to do with defending ourselves or halting another 9-11. It was for money, power and profit. And finishing what 'Poppy Bush' started.

We need to learn from history, not ignore it or push it aside as Blair is determined to do.

How do you weight the matter, citizen? On what pretense do you make war, what process of reason and debate do you puruse to take the life of a man away?

In the USA, Capital punishment is weighed over a process of many years, under a heavy burden of proof and with several juries. That is the weigh the life and death of even the most lowly forms of men.

How much more does care our executive branch accord to an entire nation of innocent men, women, and children? Isn't it reasonable that before any lethal action be taken against AN ENTIRE PEOPLE, there be a righteous and well-defined justification? If we allow even the most vicious men among us the process of law and the dignity of justice, how is it that the much greater matter of CONQUERING A NATION and destroying its people escapes all review or debate?

It is Justice, Mr. President, that you said you were after, yet you have avoided every truthful examination of this war. What manner of justice are you pursuing? We all have discovered that there was no clear and present danger to the people of America in Iraq. There were no bombs, no missles, no toxics. No plan for terrorism, nothing but the miserable people of a brutal disctatorship, and his opulent lifestyle.

Life and death issues deserve better service, sirs. When you will to sever a man from his life for a capital offense, you go through great efforts and pompous shows of jurisprudence. Yet when you slaughter tens of thousands, you show yourself to be a tyrant with a dangerous bent towards warmongering and global domination.

Weight then, my fellow citizens, for this government has NOT weighed, but has acted outside of the boundaries we have set forth as a people for acceptable behavior. Do you think you live in a Democracy? If you allow this madness and bloddshed to continue at the whim of our government, then you are fooling yourselves, sirs. There is no longer any democracy in America, sirs, because there are no people to support it.

Arkaleus

I know it's not realy relevant to the thread, but I remember crying at the very end of 'Blackadder Goes Forth' when they went over the top.

Yes, that was certainly a powerful show. All through the episode I expected them to get out of it, and when they went 'over the top' it made me realise that things aren't all fun & games.