The Maniac’s Guide to Creating War – Basic Procedure

A criminal person or group, having managed to suborn a nation's government, decides it would be a jolly fine idea to have a war so as to pinch some other nation's land, gold, oil, slaves or what-have-you, or to distract attention from the government's own criminal conduct/atrocious economic mis-management/erosion of the human rights of its own citizens etc. Some pretext or justification must be found so as to convince decent people that they should do, what otherwise, would not have entered their heads: maim and kill people they have never even met and with whom they have no real argument. Therefore, they must be terrified into believing the target nation is a threat or that some injustice or insult has been committed that can "only" be corrected by armed assault. Alternatively, convince the people that "God says they should do it" or their survival will be enhanced by the creation of death and chaos or some similar batty argument. This can be best achieved by lying to them, making up "facts" or distorting facts so as to create a turbulence in which they will cease to reason. It can also be achieved by actually creating a real threat, for example by using one's intelligence agencies to put lunatics in power in other nations and having one's banking sector finance the purchase by one's pet lunatic of weapons of death from one's own arms corporations. Important. Whatever happens, the exercise of justice must be prevented at all costs, lest one's case for the summary execution of tens of thousands of people who were minding their own business be subjected to unwanted scrutiny and verification be demanded of the "facts" one has put forward. And lest any properly conducted investigation should bring to view one's own crimes and one's own contribution to creating the threat in the first place. Moreover, justice precludes punishing people on someone's assertion as to what they "might do," and also precludes clobbering innocent bystanders in one's enthusiasm to get the bloke who looks like someone who might do something or the other. Justice can be annoying as it tends to greatly restrict one's choice of pretext upon which to order in the high altitude bombers to pulverize the odd shopping mall, school or hospital. Worse, if one is caught trying to start a war on the basis of flimsy or non-existent evidence, large numbers of people are likely to conclude that one is bonkers. Point to the threat relentlessly and play up the threat to the maximum possible degree. Have your media think up some scares that will create the impression that the threat is "everywhere. " If necessary, create or permit a few "incidents" that will further drum home the ghastliness of the threat. Generalize; avoid getting down to specifics. Overwhelm. Terrify. Marginalize, discredit, ridicule or deny a platform to anyone who has the temerity to point out that not only is war not the "only option," other options such as proper, fair justice are being studiously ignored. Use the existence of the "threat" to portray any advocacy of sensible conduct as weakness in the face of the threat. Pretend you are a "strong leader" who is going to take the "only choice" you have been left with so as to "protect your people from the threat. " Always declare the very best of motives, such as "protecting democracy" or "safeguarding civilization" - even while actually spitting on both. Take all the necessary steps to destroy, in your people, their sense of kinship with their fellow man. Have them view the people of the target nation as somehow less human or less worthy of life than they, so that attacking them is "not really a crime. " Give the order to start killing.