Sheep magazine archive 1: issues 3-9

20
what was thought morally permissible in warfare.
It was a war that seasoned rulers for future wars,
Napalm and Agent Orange in Vietnam, cluster
bombs in Afghanistan, depleted uranium and
chemical agents in Iraq, white phosphorous in the
Gaza strip.....
The First World War was a national trauma – an
international trauma – and one that has left has
its imprint on the popular imagination to an extent
almost unparalleled in modern history. Yes Mr
Cameron undoubtedly there are lessons to be
learnt, but we will not learn them by narrative
alone or by dismissing the “big explanations” you
are so keen to avoid.
The mythologies and the misinformation of the
last 100 years will continue to be propagated and,
after four years of “programming” we may even
be forgiven for believing that this was a ‘just’ war
fought to preserve liberty; cognitive dissonance
rendering us too uncomfortable to bear the truth.
And what is the truth? We won’t get it from
representatives of the military-industrial
complex or media corporations. But, there are
other voices out there: voices you won’t hear
on the BBC, voices that might even answer a
whispered “Why?”
“Today, tens of thousands of war memorials in
villages, towns and cities across the world bear
witness to the great lie, the betrayal, that they died
for “the greater glory of God” and “that we might
be free”. It is a lie that binds them to a myth. They
are remembered in empty roll calls, erected to
conceal the war’s true purpose. What they deserve
is the truth, and we must not fail them in that
duty”.
(Gerry Docherty & Jim Macgregor, Hidden
History: The Secret Origins of the First World War,
Mainstream Publishing)
“During the war, 21,000 new millionaires
and billionaires were created in America
alone, to say nothing of the massive
secret profits made by their European
counterparts. Meanwhile, in their millions,
boys with normal viewpoints, fine boys,
boys the pick of their generation, were
forced to leave their firesides, their
families, their fields, their friends and their
factories, to ‘about face’ and think nothing
of maiming and killing, as if they were the
order of the day”.
(General Smedley Butler, War is a Racket)
article copyright © Joe Jenkins
Rockerfellers ‘war ... what it is good for!’
Source photograph in public domain
Montage: Alan Rtutherford
SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 3