Catherine Belsey is research professor of English, Swansea University, and the author of Why Shakespeare? (2007). This is from her review of Pacifism and English Literature: Minstrels of Peace (hat-tip NL):

We live in a world where increasingly implausible euphemisms are designed to reassure us of war’s humanity: “smart bombs”, for instance, as well as “friendly fire”, not to mention “intelligence”.

“A geographical area of mass slaughter becomes a ‘theatre of war’,” White observes, as if killing were a show put on for the pleasure and instruction of interested spectators. Fiction and poetry, meanwhile, give a sharper picture than our own propaganda machines will permit.

Written with conviction in the context of the West’s shameful waste of life in Iraq, and its equally shameful failure to intervene in the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, this reflective and wide-ranging book presents a timely reminder that war is always a choice. Literature tends to indicate that it is usually a poor one.

1. The shameful wastes of life in Iraq have been the result of non-Western and Western actions. Arguably, since the elections in Iraq gave a sovereign government of Iraq, the Non-Western actions have been largely responsible for continuing the violence (often with the support of so-called anti-war voices).

2. A shameful failure to intervene in a conflict? Examples of pacifist interventions would be welcome. Even a sainted and blessed UN intervention force, sprinkled with the holy water of righteousness by Conor Foley himself, would find a pacifist peace-keeping mission difficult in execution.

Still, fair play. Belsey gets to tick the Iraq and Israel boxes neatly. Well done her. It’s nice to conform to the consensus of the day.