Roger Watson
The mainstream media and our politicians seem united on one thing: the war in Ukraine is our war and we must help to fight it. Even on fringe outlets such as TalkTV, anchor woman Julia Heartless-Brewer seems determined to bring it home at any opportunity without a care for the thousands more Ukrainians—military and civilian—and Russian military who will die. She asked on Twitter recently if a foreign power were invading the UK how much would we sacrifice to fight them off and retain our territory. Of course, what she means is, how many young mainly male lives are we willing to sacrifice while she, presumably, would sit in the comfort of the TalkTV studio and report on it. It is all too easy, and it is always someone else’s life that we are willing to sacrifice.
But the question is moot as we are not in a situation where our country is being invaded; she is referring to another country into which she approves of us pouring money and celebrities and simultaneously depleting our own stocks of weapons to fight someone else’s war. If this goes on much longer her question about how much we’d be prepared to sacrifice if our country were invaded will be redundant. We will have nothing left to fight them with.
But back in Ukraine, we don’t know how many people are dying and even a conformist newspaper like The Times is asking the question. But the answer is not forthcoming as it is a Ukrainian state secret. There are rumours that Ukrainian recruits are dying on average within hours of reaching the frontline and there are also reports of huge levels of death among Russian conscripts. These speculations are both probably true, but we have no way of knowing. In fact, we have no way of knowing much as the mainstream media seems remarkably reluctant to put its own ‘boots on the ground’.
The valiant and lone voice within the mainstream media, Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens, pointed this out on TalkTV recently in his weekly interview with Mike Graham. What happened to Clive Myrie and his nightly, breathless, dispatches from the rooftops in Kiev? Where is Olra Geurin with her vowel-mangling accent to give us the latest score, like it was all a big game?
Hitchens proceeded to clash on TalkTV with Heartless-Brewer over the war in Ukraine and, when he could get a word in over her hysterical cacophony, spoke such eminently good sense that I genuinely fear for his safety. He repeatedly points out in his Mail on Sunday columns the folly of our involvement in Ukraine and the dangers of fuelling the conflict further. And with Ukraine making serious noises about joining NATO and nobody raising much objection, we may soon be obliged to be directly involved in it.
Hitchens also, correctly, points out that nobody is trying to stop the war. The UN has shown little interest except in passing further toothless motions. Inevitably, and with some justification, the UN calls for Russian withdrawal and condemns the invasion. But nothing happens as a result. Putin did the wrong thing and a bad thing by invading Ukraine. But without the outside forces trying to understand some of his reasons for doing so and that, within Ukraine there are some very dangerous extreme right-wing forces (where are Antifa when you need them?) lapping up the free and ready supply of arms they are getting, we are not addressing the real issues.
Peter Hitchens did refer to these elements early in the war and only Aris Roussinos in UnHerd has made similar reference to them since. But we persist with the myth of ‘brave’ Ukrainians and their presentation as a homogenous country of well-meaning people being oppressed by their Russian neighbours. Our continued supply to Ukraine of the wherewithal to inflict lethal force on the Russian invaders achieves one thing and one thing only, further misery, death and destruction on the Ukrainian people we claim to care so much about.
Nobody with an ounce of sense or humanity wants to see Ukraine destroyed and the question remains of how far Russia will go and what it will take to stop them. But we are finding out, and largely ignoring the fact, that they have not stopped yet. All wars stop in the end. They must. And then a peace is negotiated as it will surely have to be in Ukraine. Each day the war is prolonged sees more of Ukraine destroyed and more lives lost which takes us back to Julia H-B’s question about how much any of us would be willing to give up if our country were being invaded. I’m no pacifist but I’d sacrifice quite a lot of it if I thought it would prevent the rest of it from being destroyed and my kids having to fight to the death. Any such suggestion regarding Ukraine earns you the title ‘Putin apologist’ or ‘pro-Russian’. Call me what you like, but this is not our war.
Roger Watson is a retired academic nurse who lives in the UK.
He is currently engaged in a range of professional consultancies in the UK, Europe and China. He writes regularly for several outlets including The Daily Sceptic, The European Conservative, Country Squire Magazine and The New Conservative.
