“After the war a medal and maybe a job,” — John Sloan

When he was elected president, no one ever expected Trump to be a particularly good diplomat. He was hailed for his harshness, praised for a lack of politesse. It is no real surprise then that long-standing tensions between our world’s self-proclaimed policeman, the United States, and Iran are heating up. Both Trump and Khamenei hurl threats at each from their respective palaces and the likelihood of an escalated conflict seems rising. In times like these, it is important to remind ourselves what war really is, who it serves and who pays for it.

Most sane people have long given up on believing exactly what the American war pigs say about their aggressions. No one can seriously still pretend that most of America’s expeditions into the Middle East of the last decades were for anything other than economic benefit, particularly in the form of oil. There will always be some justifying lie (national interest, human rights) for aggressors to call on, but war is always for profit.

As with anything in our world, this profit is paid for by the working classes. The politicians are pushed on by their corporate overlords to call for battles they never take part in. When the horns of war sound, they will not join us at our assigned posts. Instead, like the Roman emperors they model their rule after, they watch their gladiators maim themselves in their name. In every war, it is the poor, the wretched and oppressed that fight so that the powerful can continue reaping their benefits.

The elites will try to fool the masses with a feigned participation. The imperial sons will go through basic training, eat with the poor in the barracks and put on their khakis. But when the bullets begin to fly, we will not find the crown princes of capital at our sides. They will be too busy pinning their medals to their decorative uniforms.

Politicians hide themselves away

They only started the war

Why should they go out to fight

They leave that all to the poor War Pigs, Black Sabbath

The gilded walls of capitalism are painted with blood of the working classes, but our leaders in the labour movement are often holding the paintbrush. Every war requires the betrayal of the working class by its own leaders. In this vein, the cowards of German Social Democracy sent its men into battle in 1914 while it was entirely in their power to avoid it and Tony Blair, supposedly a Labour leader, sent the British working class to fight imperial battles more than any Prime Minister in British History. The working classes have not only an enemy above them, our foes also walk among us.

The working classes on either side of the trench gain nothing from fighting the capitalist’s wars — yet pay with their lives. It is no good to the American worker to shoot down the Iranian labourer — their enemy is the same. What benefit can be gained from murdering a stranger across the world if you come home to be oppressed all the same? Did killing each other give you freedom? Did it solve our structural inequalities, put an end to racism or give a dignified life to all? No, our overlords remain and all we have gained is trauma, both physical and mental.

We cannot let ourselves be tricked once more onto the killing fields. Reject all talk of national interest, abandon imperial pride and recognize your real enemy. Down with the War Pigs.