Capitalists sending workers to other countries to kill other workers who are being told to kill those same workers by their own capitalists. That’s 9 out of 10 wars today. Sometimes war is necessary, but rarely for imperialist war- the war that dominates modern warfare in the age of imperialism. There is no excuse for this kind of warfare, war for profit, war for territory, war for resources, war for the domination of capital. It’s easy to convince people to go to war. You just accuse everyone who doesn’t support it of being unpatriotic. You disguise the war as a war for freedom, those brave soldiers dying for our freedoms. But why are they fighting for our freedom all the way over there? How the hell did our freedoms get there? Freedom is a grand word, a perfect justification for war. As Hermann Goering so elegantly put it in the Nuremberg Trials, “Naturally, the common people don’t want war, neither in America, nor for that matter in Germany. This is understood. But people can always be brought to the bidding of leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country”. 

On World War 1, Lenin rightfully recognized the nature of this grand imperialist war, which is fairly basic for nearly all wars waged today:

“…It is deluding the working class and the labouring masses by asserting that it is waging war in defence of the fatherland, freedom, and civilisation, for the liberation of the peoples oppressed by tsardom, for the destruction of reactionary tsardom…

[The other nation] …which is deluding the working class and the labouring masses by asserting that it is waging war for the defence of their native lands, freedom, and civilisation, against the militarism and despotism of Germany…

In reality, the object of the struggle of the British and French bourgeoisie is to seize the German colonies and to ruin a competing nation which has displayed a more rapid rate of economic development. And, in pursuit of this noble aim, the “advanced” democratic nations are helping the savage tsarist regime to strangle Poland, the Ukraine, and so on, and to throttle revolution in Russia more thoroughly.”

For anyone with a conscience, their duty as citizens of the earth is to oppose any and all war for profit, resources, territory, domination, and imperialism. One should be especially wary of the term ‘freedom’ which is so often thrown around in war times. One must ask themselves, Is the statement valid? Who is being freed in the conflict and from whom? Do they want this ‘freedom’ or are there other- as there almost always are- reasons for the conflict. What corporations and organizations are profiting off of this war? To profit off of war is to profit off of mass murder and terror. What will your country gain from this conflict? Territory? What is in this territory? Oil? Has military intervention in this area in the past made the situation better or worse? Does the enemy pose a real existential threat to your countries existence? If not why would you support it? Who is to blame for the war? Who is provoking it? Why? One must ask themselves these questions. The real patriots are those who call for peace, not war. Only those who are invaded have a right to war.