# The Fog of War Encroaches: An Essay



## Toadling (Jul 10, 2012)

The Fog of War Encroaches
​The  fog of war comes slowly over the people, a fact which many seem to  forget. We are not plunged at once into a conflict, just as we do not  generally instantly immerse ourselves in icy waters. You do not drop the  frog directly into boiling water and expect no protest from it. Rather,  you have the frog in the pot from the start, and by small, slow  increments you increase the temperature until the frog is boiled alive  without noticing. Except, of course, that frogs actually retain enough  instinct for self-preservation that they are not so complacent if you  try to boil them alive; they do not actually slip into that deadly sleep  from the heat, but instead strive and devote every bit of life in them  to the fight for escape.


Humans, by contrast, particularly the  population of the United States and several Western European countries  in recent years, but throughout the whole world when considering a more  comprehensive view of history, have been lulled into just such a deadly  slumber. And while they are sleeping through the changing times, they  are being robbed and exploited, taken advantage of, and exquisitely  framed to take the fall for the actions of their nation, attributed  however falsely to their names. It seems, right now, that many of these  people will never wake up; they will perish in their comatose state,  only cognizant of what is happening for an instant at the last possible  second, when it will already be too late for them to change a thing.


The  fog has formed up while they are sleeping, and by the time they might  awaken it is so thick that they can no longer see anything clearly; they  can no longer distinguish truth from fallacy, to them everything is  cast in shades of gray and uncertainty abounds. In this state they are  easily led by those elite who sit on high above them and toy with their  lives as though they were simply playing a board game. Indeed, the most  cowardly and degenerate of the population are increasingly employed and  used against their own people, a force of indoctrinated, brain-damaged  mental incompetents who either blindly obey or actually derive gross  satisfaction in the execution of their orders. Do not doubt that, though  they may not yet comprise the majority of such individuals, there is a  substantial subset of this group of establishment, government-military  lackeys who have been traumatized and literally brain-damaged to the  point that they are psychologically unfit for civilization; they  literally derive joy from oppressing, harming, torturing and murdering  those they can victimize.


It has been said that the death of a  single man is a tragedy; the death of a million men becomes a statistic.  In light of this fact the ultra-rich, ultra-powerful elite of this  world have manipulated the masses of humanity to war against one another  in great masses, to shed their blood needlessly and fruitlessly,  convincing them all the time that after _these_ battles, after _this_ war, there will be peace and all the warriors and soldiers will be duly repaid for their duty to the homeland.


When  I refer to the ultra-rich, ultra-powerful individuals of this world, I  speak of old and long-established families such as de Medici (a family  who sponsored a known pirate all the way to the papacy, and a hundred  years later seated one of their very own in the same position), the  infamous Rothschild family (and who can count the skeletons in their  collective closet, eh?), the Rockefellers in America, the remaining,  interrelated royals of Europe and that lauded United Kingdom to name but  a few. Track the flow of wealth in any nation and, like tributaries  feed one after another into the same great rivers, lakes and oceans you  will see that the wealth of the common man, the fruit of his long  toiling and labour, flows inexorably to the vaults of the same bloated,  tyrannical despots who despise him.


A basic knowledge of human  history, even if only the last 600 years of it, is rather necessary to  put current and recent historical events fully and properly into  perspective. The fact that most of the common populace does not possess  this basic knowledge contributes hugely to their befuddled state of  being. This fact is illustrated manifestly in that at the current time  the governments of the United States, the UK (via England), France and  many of the EU member nations are openly taking actions and pursuing  political agendas which form the prelude to a massive armed conflict in  the Middle East, having the very real potential to even ignite a third  world war.


Yet the populations of these nations have uttered  barely a murmur of protest, despite that their names shall be further  dishonored, their blood and the blood of their family members needlessly  spilt, by the governments they have enabled.


Political-economic  sanctions, a la those currently being debated and imposed against Iran,  comprise the first steps to open warfare. When you interfere in the free  trade of a foreign nation, you invite hostile repercussions against  whatever force you have deployed to enforce your policies. Virtually  every major politician in the United States, and certainly every current  contender for the position of President in the coming 2012 elections  (with the notable exception of Ron Paul, who is an honest and courageous  individual), is chomping at the bit to go to war against Iran. To all  those who populate DC, to those sitting on Capitol Hill: your policies  are those only an utter imbecile would pursue, for you shall sabotage  your own country if you continue to pursue conflict in the Middle East  and throughout the world.


Perhaps those individuals in DC think  that they owe no loyalty to the United States, perhaps they think that  if their homeland becomes a real battlefield they will simply hide away  in bunkers or fly off to South America or some other safe place. It is  quite possible that they think that they, and their families, will be  immune to the repercussions for their actions; but I think not. I think  that 99.9 per cent of those scummy, degenerate politicians, lobbyists,  and other assorted lackeys will find themselves sold out with the rest  of the American people, and so they will perish.


The nations of  this world have been very acquiescent to the American government, they  have allowed the US to commit many crimes against them, and have  scarcely produced any great protest against her invasive, empire-growing  policies. Yet this acquiescence, borne solely from their greater desire  to avoid widespread nuclear warfare and the resultant radioactive  fallout than to confront the same insane government that actually  deployed nuclear weapons against a foreign civilian population, this  acquiescence has its limits too. If the United States pushes far enough,  her people will find themselves at once plunged into a devastating  armed conflict, and they will see the horror of warfare visited upon  their own homeland for the first time in their collective memory. This  fate cannot be what the population of this country desires for  themselves.


Indeed, when one considers that those individuals in  the very military our country has deployed so broadly across the globe  are the same individuals who support Ron Paul, a staunch anti-war  advocate, the facts speak clearly for themselves. The American  population, for the most part, does not wish to see their sons and  daughters, their fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters  aggressively deployed into foreign nations to have their blood  needlessly shed and their lives lost in pursuit of a tyrannical regime’s  quest for global domination.


There are some small sects of our  society who have fallen prey to the brainwashing of modern media and who  subsequently sound the call for war, but most individuals simply desire  to get on with their lives in peace. In fact, the chief problem of the  American people is their ignorance concerning political matters and  their utter complacency towards perceived authority figures, two factors  which make them highly susceptible to manipulation by fools cleverer  than them.


Currently, those clever fools doing the manipulating of  the masses are spinning tales and repeating talking points designed to  initiate an open engagement (though unlikely to be publicly called, or  constitutionally declared, a war) with Iran. This conflict has been on  the political agenda of the United States for a very long time, as  illustrated by our history in the last fifty years, but in the last ten  years the criminals spearheading Washington’s political agenda have  moved forward to the point we are at now. The US has currently  entrenched itself in Iraq and Afghanistan, Kuwait, Qatar and many other  nations, yet this is not seen as a prelude to war?


Following their  ‘successful’ campaign in Libya, which culminated in the murder of  Gaddafi and numerous crimes against humanity being carried out by the  so-called revolutionaries, a campaign in which NATO and the ‘rebels’  they supported targeted public works and  services which benefited the  civilian populations, simultaneously leaving most of the oil  infrastructure unscathed – following this success of theirs, the US,  England and France now cavalierly wish to continue their conquests into  Syria and from there no doubt to Iran, under the guise of the U.N. and  NATO.
Here, however, they encounter a problem, and perhaps this is  actually the real aim of theirs: China and Russia are both opposed to  sanctions against Iran, and both have stated they will go to war in  defense of Iran if a military operation is launched against her.  Furthermore, Russia has especially taken actions to defend her interests  in Syria, and the Russians have stated they will block any UN or NATO  action taken against Syria.


Thus, if the US, her allies and puppet  organizations seek to further their campaign in the Middle East, first  by pressing in on Syria and then by closing the noose on Iran, they will  ignite a powder keg which envelopes the United States, Israel, the UK  and Commonwealth Nations including Canada’s mainland and troops drafted  from Australia and New Zealand, western Europe via the likes of France  and Germany, virtually all of the Middle East, Pakistan, India, China,  the Russian Federation and most of the former Soviet republics such as  Ukraine. That is to say, if the US and the other aforementioned parties  continue to pursue their agenda in the Middle East, we will have World  War Three upon us in the next year, and it will be the most deadly  conflict in human history.


Albert Einstein is often quoted as  having stated, ‘I know not with what weapons World War III will be  fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.’ There  is some humour in his statement, but then humans often try to joke about  serious things to lighten the impact of them. A third world war would  devastate huge swaths of our planet and decimate the population of the  Northern hemisphere. Even if the nations of this world only had classic  tools of war and atomic weapons, life in the US and most other countries  in the Northern hemisphere would be virtually annihilated. In addition  to all the classic tools of war, upgraded and enhanced with the latest  technology, and atomic weapons, the nations who would be involved in a  third world war all have varying arsenals of secretly produced  biological weapons, chemical weapons and all manner of remote-controlled  and robotic killing systems designed for maximum fatality.


When  one observes history, specifically the history of the first and second  world wars, it becomes abundantly clear that the reasons those great  wars started had nothing to do with any nation benefiting or enhancing  the quality of life for their citizens. All the nations involved in  those wars suffered, some more and some less; the Baltic countries  suffered, Germany suffered, England and the UK suffered, France, Italy,  Austria all suffered, certainly Palestine suffered. Perhaps more than  anyone, the Russians suffered from WWI, they suffered through their  forced collectivization in the 1920s and 1930s, and then they suffered  again in WWII. In the two world wars alone, Russia lost more military  and civilian lives than nearly every other nation combined.


In  1913 and 1914, when countries such as Germany, France and the UK were  debating whether war over the Balkans was necessary, the Russians were  not even an industrial nation, they were still an agricultural nation;  the industrial revolution had barely started in Russia. As a result,  Russia required some three months or more to prepare for a large armed  conflict, whereas the European countries could be ready in anywhere from  three days to three weeks. While the Tsar tried to support peaceful  resolutions to the Austrian-Serbian conflict, simultaneously Russia had  to prepare in case of war. At the same time, multiple foreign nations  were becoming entangled, via their own strategic political or economic  interests, in one another’s personal affairs. Larger, more powerful  countries had ties to the embittered parties; Germany was closely allied  to Austria, while several of the smaller Balkan states had sought  protection from Russia, etc. Doesn’t this sound familiar to anyone?


So  as more countries become involved, differing political, social and  economic motivations come into play, and different cultural backgrounds  must be taken into consideration. Frankly, especially in the West,  politicians are not renowned for being a multicultural, multiethnic  bunch. Moreover, they tend instead to be overwhelmingly xenophobic and  trigger happy. Indeed, right now the US will not even deign to speak  directly to Iran; and in Qatar, a country with close ties to the US, the  diplomatic emissary from Russia was recently assaulted and  hospitalized; subsequently the Russians are withdrawing their presence  from Qatar.


At best, what you get is a situation where  misunderstanding can occur easily, confusion and faulty information may  abound, and things can quickly spiral out of control when one party  starts to panic and take ‘preemptive’ actions to protect themselves.  More sinisterly, you can have a situation where those very powerful  corporate-political-financial elite take advantage of the state of  ignorance and confusion among the general populace and exploit  political, economic and social circumstances to bring about massive  warfare, from which they have, or think they have, devised a number of  ways to reap great benefits for themselves while the rest of the people  of their countries die and kill one another in battles which do not  benefit them at all.


Right now, the big, powerful nations of China  and Russia are standing by their strategic political and economic  interests in the Middle East, in Syria and Iran especially. The Russians  and the Chinese are prepared to defend those countries with military  force if necessary. They are facing off against the big, powerful  nations of the US, France, the UK, Commonwealth Nations and most of the  NATO affiliates in Western Europe; and Israel is exerting the influence  it has in Washington to keep the US pushing forward, backing Israel up  militarily while that country desires to make ‘preemptive’ strikes on  Iran, ostensibly for reasons of national security.


As the United  States and Israel are both well known for carrying out state-sponsored  terrorism to establish public support for otherwise wildly unpopular  actions, the population of the US, and also those populations of France,  Germany, the UK, etc. should be well on their guard. It is only by the  vigilant supervision of its citizenry that the government of a country  is not hijacked by criminals who are motivated solely by personal gain.


The  election of Ron Paul as president in the 2012 election would be a great  step in the right direction for the US, although the establishment  media and mainstream political parties have been doing their best to  smear his campaign, defame him and condition the population to accept  that he cannot win. Liars always encounter a problem when they try to  smear a truly good, honorable person, however: such a person is not like  them, does not hide skeletons in their closet, and as such cannot be so  easily manipulated or blackmailed.


This is the same media that  began running sophisticated smear campaigns against Gaddafi in the years  just before the invasion of Libya, in an effort to convince the  populations of the US, England, France and other Western European  countries that he was a degenerate, sexually deviant man, unpopular with  his own people, etc. At the same time, the politicians of these  countries were quite chummy with him, with Western powers being given  lucrative military and oil contracts by his government. Gaddafi made  mistakes, among them that he did not watch his back closely enough, and  so he was betrayed.


Those who value freedom and liberty in the US  should watch their backs very carefully, for that media and those  politicians now want two things: war with Iran, thus world war entailing  the deaths of billions, and the annihilation of all of the common man’s true freedoms and liberties.

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If you've read all the way down to here then congratulations and thank you very much for taking the time to read this essay of mine. Although I wrote this several months ago, I think the topics are more pertinent now than ever before, and I would love to get some feedback from you folks as to the merits of this essay. Constructive criticism is also welcome, as I am ever seeking to improve the quality of my writing.

Let me know what you think, and thanks again.

- Toadling


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## Bilston Blue (Jul 11, 2012)

I didn't finish this piece. In the beginning it reads only as an opinion piece, yet essays present an argument built on solid  foundations of research and fact. Also, the picture you paint of the world's population (in essence, one could say, your readers) will only alienate your readers. In the beginning this reads as if you believe you are superior to your reader for knowing what they don't.

Incorporate some evidence to back up your theories. If the evidence comes later in the piece, then ditch the first few paragraphs. It reads like angry fourth-form anti-establishment polemic with no real substance.

Sorry to be so blunt, really I am. But if someone served this to me in a journal I wouldn't read on.


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## Toadling (Jul 11, 2012)

I appreciate your response, though I am discarding your suggestions for two reasons: one, you didn't finish the piece, and two, you've made the ludicrous statement that I was describing the population of the world when I was only, explicitly, describing the populations of the United States and of Western European countries. 

As to your statement that there is 'no real substance', I am at a loss to understand how you can make that statement when you did not finish the piece. Indeed, the impression I get from your statement is that you didn't read past the first paragraph. As to this essay being 'anti-establishment', that's not really the case except insofar as the essay is anti-war and the establishments in the United States and many Western European countries are quite fond of war. 

I would like to know what you mean in terms of 'incorporating evidence'. Do you mean that I should have quotes/excerpts with a bibliography of sources? If so, while I agree that essays can be written in that way, I would also like to say that a good essay does not necessitate such inclusions. That isn't to say that I don't have supporting evidence within this essay, it is there if you were to finish the piece, but I admit I do not include any outright quotes/excerpts or a bibliography of sources.

Perhaps to get an idea for the style in which I write as an essayist you should look into the essays of Leo Tolstoy. While he is most famous for his work as a novelist, Tolstoy was a fine essayist and his work covered topics from warfare, religion, and morality to drug use and the nature of true freedom. I've never seen an essay by Tolstoy that made much use of excerpts/quotes or included a bibliography of sources.

Thanks for taking the time to respond;

- Toadling


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## garza (Jul 12, 2012)

Toadling - I did read your essay all the way through, and I must agree with what Bilston Blue has said. If you like, I can provide a paragraph by paragraph exegesis.


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## Toadling (Jul 12, 2012)

garza said:


> Toadling - I did read your essay all the way through, and I must agree with what Bilston Blue has said. If you like, I can provide a paragraph by paragraph exegesis.



You could just as easily have said a paragraph by paragraph analysis, but sure, go for it. ^.^

- Toadling


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## garza (Jul 12, 2012)

They are not the same, which is why they have different names, but that's of no matter. I'll need about a day.


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## Toadling (Jul 13, 2012)

garza said:


> They are not the same, which is why they have different names, but that's of no matter. I'll need about a day.



If you've got 20 minutes to spare during that time there is a wonderful South Park episode I'd love to share with you.

Smug Alert (Season 10, Episode 2) - Full Episode Player - South Park Studios     :grin:

I hope you'll take the time to enjoy it, and I look forward to reading your paragraph by paragraph exegesis. 

Cheers;

- Toadling


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## garza (Jul 13, 2012)

Sorry, the cartoon site is protected from download and must be watched a few seconds at a time. A 20-minute cartoon will take maybe two hours to watch. I'll get back to it, perhaps, when I have more time. That's a cartoon series I've not heard of before but truth to tell I've not been to the movies for about 30 years.


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## Bailey (Jul 18, 2012)

What I most admired about this essay isn't it content, but rather, the obvious passion with which it was written. I often read the essays of people without an opinion of their perceptions like Martin Luther King, Flannery O'Connor,  Tupac Shakur,  Benjamin Franklin,  Kafka,  and the list goes on. They were masters in their essays when it came to power of reason and emotional entanglement. Your words are compelling from a standpoint, the facts presented from well established ground. 

Facts should be gold plated. Even if no one likes the way they look, gold is still glittering and sparkly. I like that standard.  

As to the content,  I'm an unbiased American. I didn't vote the last election nor the 600 years prior, so I believe it would be hypercritical to say I agree or disagree. But I enjoyed the piece thoroughly.


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