The history of politics is the history of factions jostling for power, by methods seldom peaceful and rarely, if ever, honest. War is by far the preferred means of obtaining and augmenting domination of the political landscape and the enrichment of the ruling clique.
Sometimes this means violent civil strife within the state itself. At other times, the political tool of war is directed outwards, at some demonized enemy who poses a "threat" -- which is almost always exaggerated or illusory -- to national survival. Without fail, the warmongering faction's political opponents are identified with the enemy, either as direct agents or, more often, as unpatriotic abettors whose criticism of the rulers gives "aid and comfort" to the foe.
Blood is an excellent sealant for factional unity. Once lives have been taken in pursuit of the faction's interests, which are invariably dressed up in the rhetoric of moral purpose, it becomes much harder for the faction's members to question or quit the cause. To do so means confessing not just to error but to complicity in murder. Few are those who can face such a stark unmasking. Self-deception is vital coin in the economy of factional partisanship.
Is such a faction, so steeped in blood and lies, so ravenous for domination, ever likely to resign its power voluntarily through free, unfixed elections? Or will it not seek to extend its rule, by any means necessary, into the years and centuries beyond?
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/06/10/120.html
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