A quiet pacifism has eaten into British souls

Generations have grown up softened by the long years of comfy, unthreatened consumerism

So this is what it feels like when the world changes. For weeks we have been told that, should the axis of virtue that is America and Britain finally kick sand in the face of their former friends and act unilaterally in Iraq, then a massive international realignment was inevitable, with the United Nations, Nato and the European Union being changed for ever.

In the Middle East, the great political revolution would be more visible. The invasion of a sovereign state by the world's only superpower would, depending on who one believes, either be greeted by the shining, smiling faces of a liberated populace or prove to be the best recruiting sergeant al-Qa'ida could ever wish for.

Yet, here, life goes on. The sun shines, people go to work as usual. There are a few edgy jokes about gas-masks and stocking up with tinned baked beans, but few people, in their hearts, have taken seriously the various doomsday scenarios that have been set before us. The TV channels seem to have decided that over-reaction to this state of war would be unpopular with viewers so, apart from extended news bulletins, the schedules have remained as cheerfully trivial as ever.

Unusually, even the more right-wing newspapers which normally, at times of military build-up, lead with excited accounts of the latest guns, missiles and tanks of hi-tech warfare, have been more muted, as if sensing that even their most gung-ho readers can summon up little enthusiasm for this conflict.

Those in the front line seemed to have picked up on this ambivalence. In one story that appeared in several newspapers, a journalist reported on the rather odd address given by Lieutenant-Colonel Collins – photographed in slick dark glasses, chomping on a cigar – as he briefed the men of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish regiment.

Lt-Colonel Collins included the blood-curdling call to arms required on these occasions. "Show them no pity," he is reported to have said. "I expect you to rock their world. There are many regional commanders who have stains on their souls and they are stoking the fires of hell for Saddam. As they die, they will know that their deeds have brought them to this place."

Then, because this is a different kind of war, the troops were given a caring and sharing message, too. Those who killed needlessly would "live with the mark of Cain upon them". The country they were about to invade was steeped in history and had a wonderful people. "You will see things that no man could pay to see and you will go a long way to find a more decent, generous and upright people than the Iraqis." The address, apparently, "reduced many of Britain's toughest infantry troops to tears."

If the soldiers confused by this odd confection of love and rage, of Old Testament fire and brimstone, cheesy travelogue and Hollywood rhetoric, then that is nothing to how the rest of us feel. We have discovered over the past two or three decades that we really do not like war. A sort of unspoken pacifism has eaten into the soul. With every conflict, however justified it has seemed at the time, victory has felt less like victory. When Mrs Thatcher urged us to rejoice, rejoice, at the end of the Falklands War, most people were simply relieved that it was over. The televised excitements in the Gulf, in Kosovo and in Afghanistan were accompanied by a growing sense that, sooner or later, a bewildering sense of moral ambivalence would descend on the events that were taking place in the name of peace and justice.

Perhaps this should be a source of shame. Generations have grown up softened by the long years of comfy, unthreatened consumerism. Because few of us have known what it is like to experience the genuine fear of a threat to our country, patriotism has either become watery and sentimental or suspect, an excuse for racism or thuggery at a football game. We have become more internationally minded, so a simplistic, us-and-them distrust of foreigners can no longer be whipped up as easily as it once could. And, of course, the modern media has ensured, however the smart the bombs or surgical the strikes that we see on out TV screens, we have seen, in a way that has never been experienced before, the human cost of war.

No wonder that the Government has had such difficulty sending us to war. Ministers may ask us to fix our eyes on the great re-building of Iraq that will soon take place but, being cynical and mistrustful of our allies, we can't help noticing that there will be other significant beneficiaries of this process.

Contracts worth $150bn have been promised to companies involved in post-war Iraq. They will not be from the UN nor even, rather shockingly, from Britain. Citing the "urgent circumstances" of war, the Bush administration has invited a select group of large companies to bid for lucrative contracts. Most of the lucky firms, according to a revealing article by Arianna Huffington in the e-magazine Salon, are those who happened to have contributed to the electoral funds of the Republican Party.

Perhaps, on this occasion, we have a right to be confused and suspicious about the motives for war.

terblacker@aol.com