IN THE GOING DOWN OF THE SUN

By

JOHN G. SUTTON

If I should die, think only this of me / That there’s some corner of a foreign field / That is forever England’  Those words by the poet Rupert Brooke came to my mind the day I visited the British and Commonwealth War Cemetery on the Greek Island of Crete.  It was late afternoon in mid September and the sun was beating down from a clear blue sky reflecting from the white gravestones that stood row upon row in that quiet field overlooking the pale blue sea. One sad stone bore the legend that seemed to me to encapsulate the whole horror of battle: A Soldier of The 1939-45 War. This Unknown Soldier now lay far from home, his short life ended, had he lived, I thought, what might he have been. What mother wept when she heard that he had fallen? And why? Why?  

The British and Commonwealth War Cemetery Crete.

War doesn't make boys men, it makes men dead.~Ken Gillespie

Click the above photograph to visit a page containing Anti-War quotes.

Our soldiers have died in many wars and are buried in foreign fields across the world. One dear lady sent me her poem dedicated to those that fought and died in the hell that was Burma during WWII: The Burma Star by Iris Gunner. At the time they called themselves the forgotten army of men / Those that survived still think as they did then / How can they do otherwise unless we hear what they say? / With their memories of long ago still haunting them today / Facing in their youth men of a different culture and race / Who forsook all humanity in simply saving face / A cruel regime was suffered far away from all they had known / Familiar land, loving folk and a place that each called home / But as long as there are memories and tongues to tell the tale / The heroism of their stories will never, ever fail / as long as pen to paper the written word is read / They will never be forgotten, the living and the dead / Survivors, you have to live with all that you went through / We, without that experience owe all our thanks to you/ We have our life and liberty on this remembrance day / Because your own was so ruthlessly snatched away.  

It is now sixty years since the end of WWII and still the battles rage. In Iraq over a hundred thousand civilians have been killed, almost two thousand American  and British soldiers dead and the end is nowhere in sight. What is all the killing about?  It seems that we are now in an Orwellian world where War is Peace and the enemy is an intangible idea labeled ‘Terror’.  Today we cannot even identify the objectives of war. On a recent ‘Newsnight’ 12th Oct.2005 BBC TV’s flagship news and current affairs programme, the Foreign secretary Jack Straw said that the removal of Sadam Hussain was achieved by the USA/UK attack on Iraq. There was no mention from him of the missing weapons of mass destruction that were the reason we were given for the assault by our forces on the sovereign nation of Iraq. Jack Straw was saying that the removal of the Iraqi leader and regime change was sufficient. We were not told this by the government at the time of the invasion so, in effect, we were misled, lied to and now we are expected to accept a new, post attack, explanation to justify the mass murder of thousands of innocent Iraqi people and the continuing sacrifice of our armed forces personnel.  

 

Police Officers Supposedly Protecting Society But Actually Acting As An Oppressive Force.

What of our own soldiers that are now being killed? In WWI and WWII the reason for war was an identifiable threat to this country and the freedoms we enjoyed. Today the Home Secretary and the Government are taking away those freedoms, effectively removing Habeas Corpus and replacing it with some legislation that empowers the authorities to imprison without trial or even a criminal charge being laid. During the Hitler years The Third Reich used The Gestapo to arrest and murder individuals that were identified as a threat to their regime. Stalin in Russia, at around the same time, had Berria's Secret Police force snatching people at will and torturing them to death. Our soldiers went to war and died to prevent those things from happening in this country.  Today our young men and women are dying for what looks to me to be the entirely opposite reason. Consider Camp Delta at USA Base Quantanamo Bay, there we see people held without charge, without being told why they are incarcerated, held in chains, wearing orange jump-suits and masks, shuffling along inside wire cages. In the Iraqi prison Abu Gharib Iraqi civilians were tortured and even murdered by the USA armed forces. Inmates were stripped naked and sexually violated in complete contravention of The Geneva Convention.We are supporting those actions using our soldiers and other service personnel. Sixty years ago we were fighting to ensure that such atrocities were annihilated, today we appear to be encouraging them and our Government’s actions are being held to breach the European Union’s Human Rights legislation. (See John Pilger's article 'The Quiet Death of Freedom' Click Here: JOHN PILGER.)

  

Spy Cameras CCTV on the streets of a town in the Greater Manchester area of the UK.

  As Spiritualists we know that our deeds on this planet that we call Earth serve to form our future in the next world. You may believe that your personal actions re the way the UK conducts its dubious ‘War on Terror’ has nothing to do with you. But in a way it does. Edmund Burke (1729-97) said ‘It is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to triumph’.  What can we do? We can all speak out against war and refuse to be involved in it. Warn your children, warn your grandchildren, caution them against any involvement. John Milton (1608-74) understood perfectly that there is only one outcome from war, more war: ‘For what can war, but endless war breed’. And we now have our Government openly declaring war on an indefinable ‘enemy’, a concept that is beyond defeat and so War is Peace. This is an evil peace that involves us all in being spied upon by our government’s CCTV network, controlled by draconian rules, incarcerated without charge or trial, subjected to stop and search by whomsoever the government empowers, made to carry ID cards in our own land, effectively denied our basic human rights. Is this the land our soldiers died for?   

  

        CAMP DELTA: Quantanamo Bay.                             Iraqi Inmates Being Abused: Abu Gharib Prison

                     CLICK THE ABOVE IMAGES TO VIEW A VIDEO CLIP OF USA TORTURE

They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old / Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn / At the going down of the sun and in the morning / We shall remember them. Laurence Binyon (1869-1943). And when we do remember them let us also remember what the sons and daughters of our land died for. They died for our freedoms and we must not permit anyone to remove these. Speak out now before it is too late and the imaginary ‘War on Terror’ turns the UK into a Police State.

De MENEZES, A VICTIM OF POLICE SHOT DEAD ON LONDON UNDERGROUND JULY 2005

FOLLOW THIS LINK TO READ MORE: De MENEZES

Click This Typical 21st Century  British Bobby To Read More About UK Hit Squads.

THE ABOVE IS A USA LOCATED CONCENTRATION CAMP. CLICK THE IMAGE TO READ MORE.

George Orwell. Read his nightmare novel that is fast becoming a reality. Click on his image and discover 1984 and Big Brother.

THE CONSPIRACY ZONE. Click Logo.

Listen To WHY WE MUST NOT ACCEPT ID CARDS. CLICK.

BACK