Pen Meets Paper May 11, 2009

Opinion by Helge Nome
A couple of days ago I watched a news item on the BBC World News website showing the May 8 celebration in Moscow's Red Square of the end of World War II on that day in 1945. Much of Germany lay in ruins, as did other parts of Europe and beyond.
I remember on that same day in 1965, when I marched as a Platoon Sergeant, behind a company of Royal Norwegian Air Force personnel on Karl Johan Street in Oslo, Norway, to celebrate the same event, and the inaugural Telstar satellite transmission of that event across the Atlantic to North America.
And I remember just recently watching video on YouTube of German occupation forces marching on that very same pavement, also in May I believe, in1940.

The following statement came out of the Moscow news article: “The Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has issued a stern warning to any countries considering what he called "military adventures"”.
It is just all too familiar: Build up of tensions, saber rattling and finally, war. The individual issues change from one century to the next, but the underlying process does not: The will to subjugate and dominate. It is as old as life itself. Territory and domination is always in the background and these issues are glossed over by the propaganda machines of all participants. And the winner is always right because the winner writes the history books and will invariably demonize the loser.
So what is the process used to prepare people for war; to believe that they fighting for a “just cause”?
First you demonize the enemy as someone who does horrible things to perfectly innocent people. That creates fear which is used as a motivator to solicit public support. If you want to start a big war, you create a financial bubble that has to burst, creating financial hardships for a lot of people. When they are at a point of desperation, an act of provocation by your enemies will conveniently take place and you print a lot of money and make it available for people who are willing to sign up as soldiers and play other roles in the whole effort. You crank up the propaganda machine about the “Great Cause”.
Everybody jumps on the bandwagon and those who see through the whole scam had better shut up, or else they are agents of the enemy!
In 1938, Europe was a divided checkerboard with Germany rearmed, allegedly as a buttress against the Bolshevik juggernaut to the east, the Soviet Union under Stalin (self proclaimed “Man of Steel”). However, when the power play got underway, ideological biases were of little consequence, territorial ambitions were everything for the few power hungry players that pulled the strings. And we all know the consequences.
Now the wheel has come full circle and the consequences are very predictable.