Dulce et Decorum est.....

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.
                               Wilfred Owen

This is always a contentious issue, and I may struggle to make myself clear here, so bear with me.

On a simple level, I consider myself a pacifist. On a more complicated level I recognise that sometimes it is necessary to fight, and I will do so to protect myself or a friend. Taking that to a global scale, 'protecting one's friends' means (to me at least) fighting for those who are suffering under tyranny or oppression, and whose basic human rights are violated on a daily basis. However, I do not concede that this is the reason for the involvement of this country in all of the wars it is currently or recently engaged in. To my, admittedly limited, understanding, a lot of the fighting our army does seems to be less about 'protecting our friends' and more about 'knocking down the kid with the glasses and nicking his lunch money'. When power and money are stronger factors than freedom and democracy, I cannot bring myself to back the war. Still, I wear my poppy, and I observed the minute's silence today, because I give my support and my respect to those who fight for the right reasons, and to the dwindling number who had no choice but to fight. If that necessitates allowing the bullies and the oil-grubbers to believe that they share in that respect then so be it. It's worth it to pay tribute to those who have lost their lives, their health or their loved ones in pursuit of the greater good.