by

Voyle A. Glover

Blood soaked beaches, rice paddies turned red, snowy roads and mountains sprinkled with crimson splatters, hard-baked African desert  sands made browner than their natural coloring and grasses stained for a short season of time, all....all for a cause. These "causes" are seldom born of faith or reason but are oft borne in faith grasping for reasons.

And they all....all bled the earth as they bled on the earth; innocent lives, they, guilty of belief in a...cause, and guilty of other lesser sins, with some dying pagan whilst some died full of faith that their cause was just, their God nodding approval of their cause. All....all stumbled, coughed that last little cough and died for a...cause.

It was seldom their cause, though.

Every war has an aggressor, one who begins the war by making it impossible for the other to stand idle without risking death or enslavement. One postures and genuflects and prances and makes proud and bold proclamations to the approval of an adjusted populace. And eventually, the aggressor begins to believe he is destined to have great power and that his goal in life is to...well, whatever it is that comes into his little mind that he thinks he must do. And so the aggressor now feeling just in his cause, makes that fatal decision that forces the other side to make a choice: accept the aggression or fight.

 And now the defenders can espouse a cause that has a ring of authority and justness to it: Resistance to tyranny! The irony is that the defenders are seldom fighting for the "cause" they've been told about. (They only think they are.) In all preludes to war, there are espoused causes, which is the political rhetoric given to those who must fight the war and which serves to gain the approval of the population. Even dictators and evil regimes do it. But lying beneath the rhetoric are almost always the hidden causes which are not so just and the ulterior motives that lie hidden beneath the blankets of patriotism or hidden beneath a genuine and righteous cause.

For the evil men who provoke wars, they and those who surround them, see war as merely a means to an end: to become all powerful. They want to rule the world. Unfortunately,  some, even those engaged in a just war, will use war as an opportunity. And for some, it is an opportunity of riches, while others see it as a an opportunity to enlarge one's power base, or even for political gain.  There are always those who see a war as a chance for personal glory.

And so it is that even the just, those defending against tyranny, oft become corrupted. 

The innocent, the pure in heart, oft lose their way. 

Few, even those who begin the war with purest of motives, remain pure, remain true to their charge, their quest, their "cause." Generals see opportunity to train the troops and earn glory. Officers and other combatants see the chance to become heroes. War becomes as an excuse to vent pent up rages on others. And "natural born killers" find a home in war.  And they all cover these motives with the silken flags of "honor" and "justness" and "freedom." Their corruption lies just beneath the velvet coverlets of truth. Somewhere in time, the justness of the cause becomes lost in the morass of politics and conflicted interests. And far too often, the collective consciousness of a nation becomes corrupted with its own secret desires and ulterior motives.

I wonder, have any of the war mongers ever sat and looked at war from a parent's perspective? Have they ever looked, before they took that fatal step that would bring them into the "cause zone," at the grassy fields of the earth and viewed their own son with his mouth fallen slack, open to the swarms of flies crawling in and out, head angled awkwardly, staring sightlessly into the brilliant sunlit sky? Have they ever considered that baby he loved, which grew to a man and whom he loves dearly, may fall to the earth in his private war and the earth drink his blood like so many before him? And if they did make such a consideration, would they defer to take that step that provokes, that gives both sides a "cause?"

I doubt it.

Personally, I believe all wars have their genesis in naked  ambition, from pride that springs from the breast of a man or men so taken with themselves that they are willing to risk all they are, all they have, all they ever will be, kith and kin and the lives of all who will follow them in order to grasp that elusive ring of power. They are quite willing to put the sons of others on the merry-go-round ride that goes nowhere. And too often, those who become provoked to war emerge with tattered flag and tattered honor.

Power is a circular thing. One may risk his life to get it, may in fact get it, but must surrender it with his life. Power cannot go to the grave with those who obtain it. Its quest is the ultimate merry-go-round. War is the ultimate power game. It is the game where the plastic soldiers and tanks take on flesh and steel and their movements are as fluid as their blood.

But once the ride is over, you have to get off.

Hitler had his ride. He had to get off. So did Alexander and Napoleon and Caesar and thousands of other "riders" who, in their quest for power, drenched green pastures, dirt roads, trenches, chariots and steel caskets, with millions of gallons of blood. Remember it was the blood of others. Always others. Never theirs. Millions died for the "causes" espoused by these men. The earth drank the blood of millions of combatants who thought they were fighting for a "just cause," and never came to understand they were fighting for a man's private ambitions.

There's some folks due to get off the merry-go-round soon.

I'm hoping I'm around to see the end of their ride.

I'd love to see their face as their eyes echo the words: "Is...uh, is that all there is?"

The End

Copyright 2000
Voyle A. Glover