[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Tolkien wasn't a pacifist, but he certainly believed that wars should not be undertaken lightly, to bolster one's popularity or achieve some financial end. I doubt whether the Professor would have worn T-shirts under any circumstances, but he'd probably have written some very stiff letters to the Times about the current situation; and I expect that he'd be livid if he heard that his own work was being taken as a justification of it.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: No person, alive or dead, is like Sauron or Morgoth. No political or military leader, no country, army or system is as completely evil as they, so no human conflict at all is like the War of the Ring. No, not even World War II. If people are missing the point, it is because this is not made as clear in the films as it could have been, and because they themselves are so infected with stupidity and jingoism that they can no longer tell propaganda from epic fantasy.

Why on earth would a New Zealander twist his 50-year-old English source material to turn it into such a tasteless allegorical call to arms? It makes no logical sense, and what some brain-dead minority of Americans think about it doesn't change that. An artist cannot be blamed for what people do with his work, and to reduce the Lord of the Rings trilogy to some sort of American version of Jud Suss is frankly an insult to all involved.

I would also say that perhaps, just perhaps, people are drawn to the War of the Ring because it is justified: on one side its motives are noble, its cause is just, and its armies are led in person by those who made the decision to fight. Perhaps a lot of people find this a welcome alternative to the modern political climate rather than a justification for it.