H.G. Wells

In honour of two years in Iraq and all other overseas adventures of great and lesser powers, I present H.G. Wells:

"Armies and armaments are cancers produced by the malignant development of the patriotic virus under modern conditions of exaggeration and mass suggestion."--from What are we to do with our lives?, pg. 32, William Heineman Limited, 1931.

Military adventures are often either followed or proceeded by missionaries:

"The desire for service, for subordination for permanent effect, for an escape from the distressful pettiness and mortality of the individual life, is the undying element in every religious system."--from What are we to do with our lives?, pg. 64, William Heineman Limited, 1931.

Yet the problem is greater:

"We are not doing the effective thing with our lives, we are drifting, we are being hoodwinked and bamboozled and mislead by those who trade upon the old traditions. It is preposterous that we should be followed about and pestered by war, taxed for war preparations, and threatened bodily in our liberties by this unnecessary and exaggerated and distorted survival of the disunited world of the pre-scientific era."--from What are we to do with our lives?, pg. 8, William Heineman Limited, 1931.