"I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this War, on which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purpose for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation. I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed. On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the contrivance of agonies which they do not, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize.
"Siegfried L. Sassoon...July 1917"
Monday, December 18, 2006
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2 comments:
It really is tough. You may want to pick up 'The Iraq Study Group Report.' At least it offers some ideas to deal with it. What's done is done. Iraqi's need a hand and the exceptional pressure put on the shoulders of American and other coalition troops is too great to ignore.
Bonjour Alessandro. Thanks for the comment. While not denying the post’s obvious censure of the war-of-the-moment, I’ll say that my passion is even stronger for Sassoon, Owen, and the other War Poets than it is against the atrocity of Iraq. That war will eventually end, in some way or other, after yet more useless suffering, and there will be many more wars fought after it. Sassoon’s work is powerfully, movingly anti-war, and, as was once said about Erich Maria Remarque’s *All Quiet on the Western Front*, it should be read by every person every year until war is abolished. At the bottom of the page of Sassoon’s poetry that the post links to is a quote from Sassoon, which is worth reproducing: “Let no one ever, from henceforth say one word in any way countenancing war. . . For war is hell, and those who institute it are criminals.”
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