Still More For My Fiction Readers: Land For Peace

Yet another free download at Smashwords.

A few words of explanation before anyone accuses me of apostasy...

Wars are rife with propaganda. "The enemy" is usually painted in the blackest hues "our side" can manage without descending into absurdity. More, "our side" almost always makes "our" victory sound inevitable... but war knows no such thing as inevitability. Unforeseen intra-war developments can discombobulate any combatant. For example, consider what the tank did to seemingly indefeasible Germany in World War I.

But far more important than that are the postwar histories. These, as they say, will always be written by the victors, who get to assert their moral propaganda a second time -- this time, without contradiction. In such histories, God is always on the side of the victors. Right and might are united, and no one dares to say otherwise.

But some wars are won by victors whose postwar conduct proves them to be the bad guys -- badder, at least, than some of the other combatants. Consider the Soviet Union, which was part of the victorious alliance in World War II. Stalin's regime was one of the most evil political entities ever to befoul this planet. It could even be argued that it was worse than the Nazi regime. Over its tenure it took more lives and inflict more suffering on its subjects than the Third Reich did.

I don't want to pound this point into the magma. Just be careful about what you believe. Try to recognize propaganda when you encounter it. Mind you, not all propaganda is deceitful, but all of it should be treated as what it is -- a weapon of war -- and assessed on that basis. And remember: what matters in war is the outcome of the final battle, which propaganda can do nothing to overturn.

May God bless and keep you all.