“If you want peace, prepare for war”
In these frenetic days, when news runs and broadcasts on a 24-hour basis, where updates are available, from of course the viewpoint of the broadcaster concerned, as fast as you can change channels, it is sometimes difficult to remember what, exactly, were last week’s headlines, and how did the stories turn out. We are deluged, over the past fortnight, with reports of how Ed Milliband FORGOT to mention the economy, the huge deficit between actual income and expenditure, as well as Labour’s plans to keep the deficit growing. Following from Labour, we heard how the Tory conference was shanghaied by the defection of yet another MP to UKIP, as well as the strange and twisted story of a Minister who sent explicit photos of himself to a complete stranger. We are told, again and again, that our only hope for an EU in-or-out referendum is to vote for the Tories, but strangely enough, we are not told what comprises the famous ‘package of demands’ which Cameron will present to a grumbling EU as his price for us staying in!
But amidst all the chatter, and the penis images, along with all the other fluff, lies and concealed bribes so prevalent in the political parties jamboree sessions, not much notice is taken of the headlines of less than three weeks previously; headlines which presage a conflict far deadlier and more relevant to us here in the United Kingdom than in some Arabic religious conflict in lands where we, literally, have no real reason to be. We should be reading of the shells raining down on tanks and armoured vehicles in places where a cease-fire is supposed to rule, we should be reading of hidden troop movements, of manoeuvres designed to bring pressure to bear by a ruthless Russia against a poorly-equipped and badly-defended Ukraine.
The commentators write of the real result of the break-up of UK Armed Forces, and where we had thirty squadrons in 1991, today we only have seven, and two of those squadrons were only rescued from dismemberment because they came in pretty handy when we bombed Libya. We should be sending jets and supporting NATO in Lithuania, and in Poland, but instead we are frittering away fuel and time flying over the Islamic State barbarians, without even dropping any bombs, because the intelligence isn’t what it used to be either!
The Ukraine is being dismantled piecemeal, with a weak Government grasping at the straws of ‘compromise’ offered by a cynical Putin, backed up by a competent military and a ruthless KGB, and we here in the West do literally f**k-all about it.
Fire, Pillage & Plague 