It is a little over a century,
a very violent century at that,
since the phrase was popularly coined
'When war is declared, the first victim is truth.'.
It was mis-attributed to U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson,
after the late entry of America
into the first world war.
Nowhere can it be found
in any papers he left behind.
That it is mis-attributed to him
is perhaps proof of the power of war,
about which Aeschylus knew more,
as the ancient Greek playwright
was the original author of the phrase
he knew about tragedy, he wrote them.
For anyone who wants to know
why the present war is happening
here is the background to it all,
you decide what might be true
and what might be lost forever.
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