With the war in Ukraine raging as I type this, visiting death, destruction and terror on the innocent and totally bewildered people of that ancient land, I cannot remain silent. Here is part of a letter that I wrote to a friend recently, which illustrates my thoughts on the subject:
"I always thought myself fortunate that I was born at the end of WW2 and not before. I was born at the dawn of a new age, when war was going to be consigned to the bin and the future was going to be shiny and bright and peaceful. The wars of Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Somalia and Iraq were excused as policing actions with the purpose of maintaining that state of peaceful optimism. Now, in February 2022, it would sadly appear that the world is on the brink of WW3. All it takes is one megalomaniac with sufficient power and authority to impose his will on subordinates who are mesmerised by his persona and fooled by his false justifications.
In my view, Putin will not stop with Ukraine. He will want all of the former Soviet Union states such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Czechia and Slovakia. If he succeeds, he will then want Poland. His ambition is to recreate the old Soviet Union. This is his remedy for Russia's economic woes. None of this can be allowed to happen, and the only way to prevent it will be to destroy his regime in Russia. As things stand at this moment, that will only be possible by use of force. That means WW3. And if anyone, anytime, is foolish enough to use a nuclear weapon, we will have armageddon. How China, North Korea, India and Pakistan play their cards is still unclear. So far, the punitive sanctions that have been imposed on Russia aren't worth a row of beans in the short term and in the short term, he will destroy Ukraine. It takes months if not years for economic sanctions to have any severe effect. Putin will circumvent most of them by using China and still starve the west of oil and gas. He holds the trump (sic) cards."
Putin is using the reluctance of NATO and the EU to do anything that could result in a response by Russia that would trigger the NATO Common Defense Clause of the NATO charter, as a deterrent. (At the present time, NATO has 30 members. In 1949, there were 12 founding members of the Alliance: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States. The other member countries are: Greece and Turkey (1952), Germany (1955), Spain (1982), the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (1999), Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia (2004), Albania and Croatia (2009), Montenegro (2017) and North Macedonia (2020).
"Why is it that the Prince of Darkness always manages to find a compliant host to execute his will? The list is long and goes back to the dawn of history. As mankind has become more powerful and technically advanced, the death and destruction wrought on the innocent have been equally enhanced. Now we have Putin. I fear that Biden is not the man to stand up to him in a meaningful way, and that Trump will use developments in Ukraine to sabre rattle his way into office once again in 2024."
A nuclear war is unthinkable. Putin does not seem to agree and has threatened the west by placing his nuclear forces on standby. This is the act of an unstable and irrational man. I fear that I will not live long enough to witness Putin getting his comeuppance but I will encourage, in whatever small way I can in the time that I have, Good Men to Do Something!
Addendum:
The deliberate destruction of a paediatric and maternity hospital in Mariupol on March 9th by Russian forces is a clear and undeniable crime against humanity, which will be one more example of the evidence put forward at the International Court in The Hague when, at some future date, it sits to determine the extent of the war crimes committed by Vladimir Putin and his military commanders during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Putin (I will not dignify him by using the title “President”) would be well advised to consider this in the immediate future, for it is certain that the Court will issue international warrants for the arrest and detention of himself and his military commanders as soon as circumstances permit.
