When one thinks of the cruelty, squalor, and futility of war — and in this particular case of the intrigues, the persecutions, the lies and the misunderstandings — there is always the temptation to say: “One side is as bad as the other. I am neutral.” In practice, however, one cannot be neutral, and there is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction.

George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]

Essay (1942-08), “Looking Back on the Spanish War, ch. 5, Such, Such Were the Joys, essay 8 (1953)
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