There Is No Such Thing As A Just or Honourable War

As we are ready to honour November 11, Remembrance Day I think about the destruction war has done to my James Bay Cree family and my partner Mike’s Irish Canadian family. When you are affected by the death, wounding or dramatization of family members you realize how the terrorism of war ripples on into generations.

There is no glamour, no justice and no sense to any war ever fought that I can understand. In the First World War a recruiter made his way by canoe on the river systems all the way to Attawapiskat in 1916 and in fact more or less coerced a group of 22 young Cree men. He took them by canoe route south where these men ended up on a train which travelled to points further south, to army training and then they were shipped off from Halifax to England. Attawapiskat is a remote First Nation these days and can you imagine how remote it was in 1916? None of these Cree boys had any idea where they were going, no concept of the world outside of their traditional lands and they could not speak English. Many made it back but they were changed forever and my great-grandfather John Chookomolin, from my mothers family, never did return. My family did not find out what happened to him until the 1980s. My grandfather James Kataquapit, on my father’s side, did return but the experience had changed him. My dad Marius and Elders always reminded me never to trust the military when they want to take our young people. Today I see evidence of the militarization of our First Nations and it worries me. You can read my grandfathers war stories here at www.nativeveterans.com

My partner Mikes dad James was wounded and suffered from shell shock in the Second World War and had a terrible sad life. James’ brother Patrick, who was only a teen, was killed in action on the same day James was wounded in October 1944. They had both fought in the infamous Canadian led Battle of the Scheldt in Belgium. These tragedies still reverberate today through the new generations.

When we discovered these facts, their stories drew us into a lot of research on war. We were shocked to find so much information on how these wars developed. The propaganda around war and convincing populations to support war are full of lies. War is always about money and power and governments always lie about why we have to send our young people off to die and suffer terror in war. Really wealthy people or their families rarely go to war.

Communism and socialism were not dirty words in the early part of the 20th century and in fact academics, many scientists, artists and authors considered a world of socialist ideals of sharing the wealth, labour unions and free thinking was a good thing. The problem then, as it is now, is that the small amount of very wealthy, corporate heads of the billionaire and multi millionaire class did not want anything to do with sharing the wealth. These groups supported fascist organizations, funded them and put them in place all over the world in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany and many other countries. The idea was to stop the world from considering fair and just environments that would infringe on the bottom line of the very wealthy. It worked to a great degree with the killing of many labour union organizers and members, socialist leaning academics who were well represented by the Jewish communities and very much anyone who was different. These evil wealthy kingpins were responsible for the destruction of many wonderful cities in Europe and throughout the world, Many millions died, were injured and left impoverished by these wars.

Fascism was being promoted by the wealthy rightwingers all over the world with movements in Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States and right here in Canada.

So when we stand to honour and remember those who fell and who were injured and terrorized by war this November 11 take a realistic and honest view of why war really happens. Right now we have wars in the Middle East and Ukraine which are buried in all kinds of propaganda. The only thing we have to remember is that war is always about money and who makes money and benefits from war.

An example of how far right ideals have often been supported is demonstrated by how at the end of the Second World War, it was far too easy for Nazi, fascists and far right extremists to enter our country after having fought against our troops. The Deschênes Commission, officially known as the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada, was set up in 1985 to investigate claims that Canada had become a haven for Nazi war criminals. This led to some prosecutions but the list of these people have never been fully released and even after continued calls to do so after many decades, the government of Canada still refuses to release the full report.

In the United States, they had what was known as Operation Paperclip to actively bring former Nazi scientists and professionals back to America, many of whom were war criminals and active participants in the Nazi war machine.

We have to do our best to see past the lies of war. There is no such thing as a just or honourable war.